



■"-•"• 















' 















; 





































THE 



THEORY OF ELOCUTION: 



TO WHICH ARE NOW ADDED. 



PRACTICAL AIDS 



READING THE LITURGY. 



' — 

By B. H. SMART, 

AUTHOa OF THE PRACTICE OF ELOCUTION, GRAMMAR OF PRONUNCIATION, 
PRACTICAL LOGIC, ETC. 



LONDON : 
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, 

50, Connaught Terrace; 

AND PUBLISHED BY 

JOHN RICHARDSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE; 

G. B. WHITTAKER, AVE-MARIA LANE ; SEELEY AND SON, FLEET 
STREET ; THOMAS HOOKKAM, OLD BOND STREET, ETC. 

1826. 






f E8 t a;c OF 
WILL !*• 



G. WOODFALL, A.NOKL COURT, skjnner street, iosios. 




PREFACE. 



TO THE WORK AS PUBLISHED IN 1820, 



At the commencement of the year 1810, 1 
published my Practical Grammar of Eng- 
lish Pronunciation, in the Preface to which, 
I stated my intention of continuing my 
plan at some future time, by taking into 
consideration the higher requisites of De- 
livery. " Young in life, though not new to 
the business of instruction" I expected " to 
add some improvement to the method by which 
Elocution is taught" In the following work 
I have done my best to fulfil my promise ; 
but they who are aware how little leisure is 
afforded to a man dependent on a profes- 
sion of which the labours must be personal, 
will not wonder, that an intention formed 
ten years ago, has been executed in four 
weeks, determinately snatched, for the pur- 
pose, from other avocations. 

I am willing to flatter myself, however, 
a 2 



IV PREFACE, 






that something has been gained by delay. 
Had I published my Theory of Elocution 
such as it existed in my mind only three 
years ago, it would have been very different 
from the one which I now give to the Pub- 
lic. The truth is. I felt there was some- 
thing deficient in all the Theories to which 
the practice of Elocution is referred. — I 
felt there was a principle by wrjich every 
speaker is guided, which had never yet 
been explained; and as I could not explain 
it myself, I forbore to add to the mass of 
publications on the subject already in ex- 
istence. I think I have now discovered 
that principle; I think that, following the 
steps of Mr. Walker with less ability but 
more good fortune, I can furnish a general 
clue to those intricacies of pronunciation, 
for which indeed he has given rules found- 
ed on theoretical views that apply to a 
certain extent, but which seem to want the 
support of a system. And I conceive it to 
be no mean proof of the soundness of my 
system, that in every the most minute in- 
stance, it embraces the same results ; that 
what he considers the best mode of pro- 
nouncing such and such sentences, I have 



PREFACE. 



universally found to agree best with those 
more general principles with which I have 
started ; and that, even in the explanations 
he has given, we agree as nearly as two 
persons can agree, whose views of the 
nature of language are different. This 
agreement will more plainly appear, by 
comparing the following with an ingenious 
work on the same subject lately published: 
for it so happens, that wherever the Au- 
thor of that work has deviated from Mr. 
Walker (which he has done in some ma- 
terial points), he has deviated from what 
my inquiries have taught me to consider 
the true principles of the Philosophy of 
Elocution. I have the pleasure of being 
acquainted with the Author, and I am sure 
he will pardon me for stating this dissent: — 
our Treatises are before the Public, and it 
must be his wish, as well as mine, to invite 
comparison, where any difference exists. 

I am to observe, in conclusion, that 
throughout the work, I have, in the text, 
avoided all controversy and all incidental 
remark, and have laid down the principles 
as scientific facts, that require no other 
support than to be properly stated. What- 



VI PREFACE. 

ever objections I have felt necessary to be 
made to contrary doctrines, whatever is 
incidental, or merely serves to prevent the 
text from being misunderstood, I have 
thrown into notes, which the reader will, of 
course, neglect, where he finds the text 
satisfactory. 

September 1st, 1819. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The following pages, as far as the Appen- 
dix, were first published as an Introduction 
to a Volume of Exercises called The Prac- 
tice of Elocution ; but the explanatory 
matter added to the second edition of the 
Practice having fitted it to stand alone, the 
Theory, with accessions for the purpose, is 
now offered as an Introduction to Reading 
the Liturgy. Thus adapted I am bound 
to acknowledge the seniority of a similar 
work — the treatise alluded to in the fore- 
going preface under the name of The Philo- 
sophy of Elocution^which is likewise elucidat- 
ed and exemplified by Readings of the Liturgy 
of the Church. My reason for publishing a 
work, so entirely resembling in plan, will 
appear by comparing my accentuation of 
the Liturgy with Mr. Wright's. On this 
important point I regret to say we com- 



Vlll ADVERTISEMENT. 

pletely differ. I do not at all admit the pro- 
priety of his deviations from Mr. Walker's 
principles, and am unable to conceive how a 
sentence can be harmoniously pronounced, 
without that varied alternation of the 
two accents which Mr. Wright condemns : 
— I am clearly of opinion that each accent 
is frequently used merely as a preparation 
for following accents, and therefore that 
the downward accent often occurs while 
the sense is incomplete. To employ only 
upward accents during any long succession 
of words, however dependent, would, in 
my opinion, be to imitate the Scotch ac- 
cent; at least I am sure it finds no pattern 
in the manner of speaking prevalent among 
the well-educated in London. Lastly, I 
see no reason for a rule to terminate sen- 
tences of supplication, merely on that account, 
with an upward accent. Differing from 
Mr. Wright on these points, I could not 
put his book into the hands of my clerical 
pupils, and have therefore prepared for 
them one which agrees with my own prac- 
tice. 

That I may not, however, seem to speak 
too positively of Mr. Wright's mode of 



ADVERTISEMENT. IX 

accenting the Liturgy, I acknowledge that 
a proper judgment cannot be formed 
without hearing the author read it himself 
according to his own marks. This is a 
salvo, the benefit of which I expect to share 
in common with him. I know that my ac- 
cents, as well as his, may be caricatured 
and made ridiculous ; and that the down- 
ward accents which occur among my marks 
while the sense is continuing, will perplex 
the construction if pronounced like those 
that signify completion of meaning. He, of 
course, mutatis mutandis, will put forward a 
correspondent plea. 

50, Connaught Terrace, 
January 1st, 182G. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Introduction I 

Divisions of the Subject ib. 

Nature of Instituted Language 4 

Chapter I. Mechanical Reading,, or Pronunciation. 

Section 1. Pronunciation and its Objects explained .... 25 

2. Nature and Classification of Vowels and Con- 

sonants 28 

3. The Vowels of the English Language 34 

4. The Consonants of the English Language... 38 

5. Usage the Rule for pronouncing Words .... 40 

6. Interjunction of Words 46 

7. The Accents or Notes of the speaking Voice 48 

8. Variable Number of Accents in a Sentence 54 

9. Rhythmus 58 

10. Mechanical Structure of English Verse 60 

11. Rhythmus of Ballad Poetry 71 

Chapter II. Significant Reading, or Reading properly 

so CALLED. 

Section 1. False Habits of Reading 73 

2. Suspensive, Conclusive, Conjunctive, Dis- 

junctive, and Harmonic Inflections, and 

Continuative Tone 79 

3. Pause* 97 

4. Parenthesis 99 

5. Extra-suspensive and Extra-conclusive In- 

flections, and Pronominal Pronunciation... 100 



Xll CONTENTS. 



Chapter III. Impassioned Reading, or Speaking. 

Page 

Section 1. Effects which the Necessity of employing 
Artificial Language produces on the State 
or Temper of the Mind in speaking 121 

2. Correspondence of those Effects with the 

Signs of natural Expression without 125 

3. Cases in which the natural Signs of Expres- 

sion do not correspond with the artificial... 128 

4. The Narrative Manner of Speaking 130 

5. The Argumentative Manner of Speaking... 135 

6. The Meditative Manner of Speaking 138 

7. Effects produced on the Speaker's Manner of 

Delivery, by the nature of the Composi- 
tion, and by the Relation in which he 
stands to his Audience 139 

8. The Vehement Manner 141 

9. The Plaintive Manner \ 143 

10. The Gay and Lively Manner 144 

11. The Gloomy and Solemn Manner ib. 

Chapter IV. Dramatic Reading, or Acting. 
The Difference between Speaking and Acting 146 

Appendix: containing Practical Aids for Reading the 
Liturgy. 

Section 1. The Kind of Reading proper for the Liturgy 149 

2. Pronunciation of Words occurring in the 

Liturgy 150 

3. Explanation of the Marks adopted from 

page 165 to the end of the Volume 154 

4. Remarks on some of the Readings here- 

after pointed out 156 

7. The Chief Parts of the Liturgy with Marks 

to elucidate the Delivery 165 



THE 



THEORY OF ELOCUTION, 



Xntrotiurtum, 



DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT. 

Exercise for improvement in the art of Oral 
Delivery can scarcely be conducted with advan- 
tage, but by having recourse to written lan- 
guage; and instruction in Elocution, (as modern 
usage employs the term,) is therefore the same 
with instruction in Reading. 

But the art of Reading aloud varies consider- 
ably in manner, according to the office which 
the Reader proposes to fulfil: — the Requisites 
which it demands necessarily vary with the same 
circumstance. 

A mere repetition of the words of written dis- 
course in connected succession, when the sense 
is not in question, as in a sentence quoted merely 
to exemplify the component sounds, or when the 
diction is purposely too explicit and too formal 
to require any illustration from the manner of 
the Reader, as in a law document — demands 
little more than that the words shall be rightly 
sounded, distinctly articulated, and smoothly in- 

B 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

terjoined. This mode of Reading may be called 

MECHANICAL. 

A repetition of written discourse, with the 
intention of discriminating and enforcing the 
sense, but without that earnestness, or warmth, 
or passion, which would imply that the Reader 
is pronouncing his own sentiments — demands 
that the relation of the several parts of sentences 
to each other, and the oblique or referential 
meaning which some sentences are intended to 
convey, shall be signified by appropriate inflec- 
tions of the voice. This is significant reading, 
or reading, strictly so called. 

A repetition of written discourse, with the 
intention of making it a perfect imitation of good 
speaking — demands that the tone, the gesture, 
and the look of the Reader, shall exactly corres- 
pond with the subject and the supposed occa- 
sion. This may be called impassioned read- 
ing, or speaking. 

Lastly, a repetition of written discourse un- 
dertaken in an assumed character, if the charac- 
ter so assumed is supposed, either from age, or 
sex, or peculiar habits, to diner in manner of 
speaking from that which is natural to the Read- 
er — demands the mimickry of that peculiar 
manner. When characters are thus discrimi- 
nated, the mode of Reading may be called 

DRAMATIC. 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

Such are the natural divisions of the art of 
Reading, and the divisions of the following work 
will correspond with them. The requisites of 
mechanical Reading may all be comprehended 
under the term Pronunciation, which will ac- 
cordingly form the subject of chapter the first. 
The second and third chapters will respectively 
treat of Reading, (properly so called,) and Speak- 
ing; and the fourth chapter will be a brief ex- 
planation of the difference between Speaking 
and Acting. 

The propriety and the utility of this division 
will be the more sensibly felt when it is consi- 
dered, that no one can become perfect in any of 
the higher kinds of reading, who is not pre- 
viously in full possession of all the requisites 
belonging to the lower : — a person, for instance, 
will inflect his voice to very little purpose in 
trying to read significantly, if his articulation be 
mumbling, vague, and indistinct ; and he will in 
vain endeavour to do justice to his subject by 
appearing to be moved by what he utters, if he 
fails to mark the sense while he is expressing the 
passion. As to dramatic Reading, it will pro- 
bably seldom form an object of the Student's 
acquirement, the peculiar talent which it de- 
mands not being necessary in any of the branches 
of public Speaking, except that of the Stage ; 
and not even in that, while the Speaker attempts 

b 2 



INTRODUCTION. 






no other character than such as his own style of 
delivery will enable him to support. 

But before entering on the subject in any of 
the details here mentioned, it seems proper to 
premise a short inquiry into the nature of artifi- 
cial or instituted language 5 for as this is the sub- 
ject to which all the rules of Elocution are to be 
applied, any wrong conceptions of it must ma- 
terially obstruct the just understanding of the 
general principles which are to be developed, and 
on which the rules depend. 



NATURE OF INSTITUTED LANGUAGE. 

It may not, perhaps, be any where formally 
stated, yet the common opinion of language 
seems to be, that every separate word is the sign 
of a different idea, and that the progress and or- 
der of our words in speaking, represents a similar 
progression and order in our thoughts. But the 
greater part of words of which language is com- 
posed, are general terms, and the human mind is 
capable of conceiving only particulars : such 
terms, individually, cannot therefore correspond 
with our ideas. Let us take, for an example, 
the following portion of a sentence, — The cathe- 
dral church that stands in the midst of our city : — 



INTRODUCTION. O 

we may conceive the object designated by the 
whole sentence ; we may conceive the circum- 
stances which serve to point it out ; that object 
and those circumstances are particular : but let 
the words be taken individually ; — what can the 
word the suggest ? what can the word cathedral 
suggest, if not some particular cathedral, real or 
imaginary, that is to say, a cathedral of some one 
size and form ? but the word in an unqualified or 
unconnected state is general, and stands for a 
cathedral of any size and form. The same kind 
of remarks will extend to all the other words in 
the sentence. Now if none but words which 
designate particular things can correspond with 
ideas, while nearly all the words we employ in 
speech are of a general character, it must appear 
that the process of putting our thoughts into 
words, is not a process in which every separate 
word is the symbol of an idea, but a process in 
which a number of signs are put together, each 
having a certain value, and capable, in their col* 
lective capacity, of conveying the sentiment or 
recognition of the mind. Hence it is that we are 
able to convey the same sentiment, or to signify 
the same thing in so many different ways j for 
though, in two sentences, each sign separately 
may have a different value, yet their whole 
amount may be the same. 
6 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

The truth of this account will best appear by 
imagining how the different kinds of words em- 
ployed in language must have originated, taking 
care to keep clear of the errors which have mis- 
led some early inquirers on the subject. " The 
invention of the simplest nouns adjective," says 
Adam Smith, in his Considerations concerning 
the First Formation of Languages, " must have 
required more metaphysics than we are apt to be 
aware of." Nothing, however, can be more sim- 
ple. A certain fruit is called a chesnut : a cer- 
tain animal is called a horse : another animal oc- 
curs resembling it in every respect except colour, 
and that colour is the same as the chesnut. 
Therefore, to spare the invention of a new name 
for the animal, we put the two words together, 
and call it a chesnut horse. Or take it the other 
way : another fruit occurs resembling the ches- 
nut, but too large and coarse for man's use : a 
horse is a larger and coarser animal than a man, 
and therefore, by a natural analogy, we again put 
the two words together, and call the fruit a horse 
chesnut. Thus it appears that, even in the pre- 
sent state of languages, we often use substantives 
for adjectives to express the quality for which, 
as substantives, they are remarkable ; and this 
sufficiently shews how the adjective was originally 
set on foot, without any aid from metaphysics. 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

" The original invention of prepositions," says 
the same writer, " would require a yet greater 
effort of abstraction and generalization." No 
effort was used — the thing produced itself. Ex- 
amine the force and import of the word except, 
in the following sentence : In making up your 
party, leave out or except me : except is here a 
verb denoting action, and commanding that ac- 
tion to be done: — Examine it in the following 
sentence : All were there, except me : the action 
and the imperative force are lost sight of, and 
the word, from constant use in a similar mode 
of connexion, is worn into a mere prepositive 
sign of a certain value. Again : the word mid- 
dle or midst is an acknowledged noun; but in the 
sentence, He walks amid briars, it is a preposi- 
tion. Yet is it the same word reduced, by fre- 
quent use, into a mere sign, and somewhat alter- 
ed in form. This mode of accounting for the 
several parts of speech requires the aid of etymo- 
logy to carry it further, and we possess a work 
which confirms, by facts, what in these remarks 
might seem merely hypothetical ; for if Home 
Tooke's Diversions of Purley be consulted, it 
will be found that all the parts of speech were 
originally nouns or verbs. It is not, then, be- 
cause a thought is made up of many parts that 
we employ many words to express it, but because 
language does not furnish a single word to an- 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

swer the purpose, and we are obliged to modify 
one by another, till the whole, collectively, 
amounts to the expression required. Upon this 
principle we may easily conceive why the same 
thing is sometimes expressed by a periphrasis, 
and sometimes by a single word ; why some lan- 
guages have terms which others have not, and 
which can be translated only by a circumlocu- 
tion ; and why a whole phrase can be an equi- 
valent in the grammatical construction of a sen- 
tence for an adjective, a noun*, or an adverb. 
They who are not acquainted with the works of any 
of our later metaphysical writers than Locke, will 
not perhaps very easily admit the truth of this state- 
ment; but they may be desired, in the words of 
Home Tooke, (Diversions of Purl ey, vol. i. p. 38.) 
" to read over the Essay on the Human Under- 
standing with attention, and they will find that all 
which its immortal author has justly concluded, 
will be found to hold equally true if we substitute 
the composition, &c. of terms, wherever he has 
supposed a composition, &c. of ideas. And if 
that, upon strict examination, appear to be the 

* The Greek language is remarkable for assuming an almost 
unlimited power in the composition of terms ; the substantiving 
of whole sentences, by prefixing to them the neuter article, is 
striking. Thus, in Demosthenes, To psWov ovvoic-m r* 9roA«, To 
t« t» ffoXE/ny rux v xat xonot xat^oy T^aTTEo-Sat, and Others much 
longer than these, are continually occurring. 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

case, no other argument against the composition 
will be necessaiy, it being exactly similar to that 
unanswerable one which Mr. Locke himself de- 
clares to be sufficient against their being innate j 
for the supposition is unnecessary." 

But in affirming the parts of speech to have no 
connexion with the nature of our thoughts, and 
to be only necessary parts of artificial language, 
one difficulty remains behind, and that is, to ac- 
count, on the same principle, for the difference 
between the noun and the verb ; for if the prin- 
ciple is not true with regard to these, it will 
scarcely be admitted with regard to the others. 
Unfortunately, Home Tooke here leaves us in 
the dark ; for after having, with admirable acute- 
ness of inquiry, followed up every other part of 
speech till he had found it, in its early state, ei- 
ther a noun or a verb ; after he had said, " that 
a verb, as well as every other word, is a noun, 
but that a verb is something more than a noun, 
and that the title of verb was given to it on ac- 
count of that distinguishing something more than 
mere nouns convey"* — he still left this question, 
at the end of his two quarto volumes, unanswer- 
ed : " What is that peculiar differential circum- 
stance, which, added to the definition of a noun, 
constitutes a verbt?" All that he added to it 

* Diversions of Purley, vol. ii. p. 514. f Idem. 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

was, a promise to return to the inquiry ; but his 
promise was never fulfilled ; and if he knew the 
secret, he carried it out of the world with him. 
Possibly, however, the metaphysics of Home 
Tooke were not the soundest, and as the question 
eluded his research as an etymologist, he might 
have mistaken his ground by supposing it capable 
of solution on a principle into which he after- 
wards found he could not resolve it. He states 
in one part of his work, (vol. i. p. 51.) " that the 
business of the mind, so far as it regards language, 
extends no further than to receive impressions, 
that is, to have sensations, and that what are 
called its operations, are merely the operations 
of language." The direct consequence of this 
principle is, that the first invented elements of 
human speech were nouns, that is, words to sig- 
nify those impressions, or, more properly, the sub- 
jects of them ; and this accordingly seems to be 
Home Tooke's notion, for he supposes that verbs 
arose, in the progress of improvement from 
nouns, by assuming that differential something 
which was found to be wanting. To this con- 
clusion he was possibly led by a too unqualified 
admission of Locke's doctrine concerning innate 
ideas : had he given it the same interpretation it 
has received from the best metaphysicians of the 
present day, (among whom Mr. Dugald Stewart 
must be mentioned with peculiar honour,) he 



INTRODUCTION. 1 1 

would probably have concluded differently. He 
would then have seen, that to have sensations is 
not enough, but that the mind must observe and 
reflect, compare and judge, before any progress 
can be made in the work of language, and that 
these are not the operations of language, but the 
operations of the mind made manifest through 
language. The truth is, the powers and affec- 
tions of the mind belong to it in its own nature, 
and Locke's doctrine, that it has no innate ideas, 
must be understood to amount only to this — that 
in our present state of being, the perception of 
the objects of sense is the appointed means by 
which those powers and affections are primarily 
called forth. Admitting this interpretation, we 
must also admit that the business of language 
must, under any circumstances, extend much 
further than the mere naming of objects : for 
merely to name a thing is to communicate no- 
thing — is to say neither what we feel nor what 
we think concerning it; and a noun, in the true 
sense of the expression, is not a word, (verbum,) 
but an artificial sign formed, like the other arti- 
ficial signs or parts of speech, by the division of 
a word, and serving afterwards in conjunction 
with the other signs, to form a word or sentence 
(?*j/"«, dictum) expressive of the speaker's thought. 
To understand this, let us consider how it is pos- 
sible for men who have yet to acquire the use of 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

conventional sounds to express their thoughts, to 
be led to that expedient. They would not begin 
by giving names to the objects around them, (for 
that supposes the pre-existence of the very thing 
they are to invent as the means of coming to a 
mutual agreement,) but they would begin by 
signifying their wants, their affections, their de- 
sires, by those sounds which Nature taught, and 
the first steps in artificial language would be 
slight and imperceptible improvements on the 
pattern of nature. The earliest sounds which 
children utter, the earliest which would be em- 
ployed in the fabrication of language, are virtual 
sentences. Even in lisping the sounds of artifi- 
cial language which he catches from others, it is 
long before a child uses them in an artificial 
manner — it is long before he puts two or three 
together to signify a single thought. When he 
utters the childish words for father or mother, he 
always means something beyond the mere act of 
naming, which something he includes in the 
word, and the word, in such case, is not a mere 
noun, but, in the strictness of the term, a word 
or sentence. The difficulty is to conceive how 
a mere noun should have originated, since the 
actual perception or conception of an object ne- 
cessarily involves a recognition or sentiment, or 
what would be called a mental proposition, while 
a mere noun designates the object, but implies 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

nothing further. Yet as the same object is not 
always recognised in the same relation, nor pro- 
duces the same sentiment, it is impossible not to 
know that the object itself exists independently 
of any recognition, and therefore if we can only 
suppose a sufficient occasion, we may conceive 
how a name might be given to the object with- 
out regard to the actual recognition. Let us 
imagine, for instance, that unexpectedly meeting 
with a ditch, we express our surprise by a natural 
ejaculation ; that we afterwards recognise the 
same object in a new relation, not as the ditch 
that surprises, but the ditch offensive to the smell : 
this new occasion demands, like the other, an 
appropriate sound ; but the object is already 
known in connexion with the former recognition, 
and not yet in connexion with the latter : there- 
fore, in order to prepare for expressing the latter 
recognition, we might recal the former, by using 
the sound that was uttered with it. And if in 
every future recognition in which the same object 
was concerned, the same expedient was adopted, 
namely, of using the sound expressive of the first 
recognition, it is evident that this sound would 
become a mere name for the thing itself; — it 
would cease to awaken in the mind the original 
recognition, — this ditch surprises me, but would 
be understood as a mere sign standing indeed 
for a well known object, but forbidding that any 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

recognition should be understood concerning it 
till the proper word were added*. 

The foregoing example has been fixed upon 
in preference to any other that might be ima- 
gined, because even in the present state of lan- 
guage, a name has actually been formed in the 
manner here described from a natural exclama- 
tion; a ditch which is so placed as to occasion 
surprise being called an ha-ha; and this example 
may stand in place of a hundred ; for the prin- 
ciple being once admitted, its further operation 
may be easily conceived. 

The necessity by which men were thus led to 
signify one recognition or sentiment by two, and 
finally, by several words, is precisely similar to 
the necessity which obliged them to signify one 
word in writing by several characters. No doubt 
the first idea of the inventors of writing was, to 

* It may be objected, that, if merely to be aware that we 
perceive or conceive an object is a recognition, then naming 
the object, as it implies the conception of it, implies that recog- 
nition. But herein consists the artificial quality of mere names 
that they do not imply that recognition; for that we merely 
perceive or conceive the object is seldom the recognition in- 
tended; and when it is intended, we generally add a word to 
the name, to give it such meaning : and if no word is added, 
but in pointing to the object we only utter the name, then is it 
more than a name, — it is a word conveying this proposition, 
I perceive that object, or J know that object by the name I give 
it. 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

appropriate a character for every word; and 
even at this day we are told that something 
similar is practised in China. But it was soon 
found the immense number of characters this 
must require, would soon render the design im- 
practicable, and by degrees, therefore, the ex- 
pedient was adopted of spelling words. By this 
expedient, twenty-four characters, by their end- 
less varieties of position with each other, are 
capable of signifying the almost innumerable 
words of which language is composed. Just so 
it was in speech. At first every sound was a sen- 
tence. But the infinite communications which 
the intercourse of life required to be made, 
would soon have exhausted every possible variety 
of sounds. It was lucky, therefore, when a 
necessity arose to give to some of the sounds a 
less comprehensive force of signification; for 
then the sentence was expressed by two sounds 
already in use, and no new sound was required. 
Thus arose the separation of the noun from the 
verb. By degrees, as the benefit of this princi- 
ple was felt, nouns were divided into nouns sub- 
stantive and nouns adjective, and verbs were 
worn down into participles, adverbs, prepositions, 
and conjunctions. Thus we may be said to spell 
our thoughts by words, as we spell our words by 
letters. Take the most familiar example: — 
George is not walking with James, but with Harry. 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

Can the thought present to the speaker's mind 
be resolved into as many ideas as the sentence is 
composed of words ? Certainly not: for how can 
he have an idea of George but in some state or 
action — standing, sitting, running, or walking? 
Or how can he have an idea of walking, but with 
the idea of somebody walking: that George 
walks with Harry and not with James, are equally 
parts of his actual thought, and the whole exists 
in his mind at once. The expressing of this 
thought or recognition by so many words, is, 
therefore, the mere contrivance of language. 
Thus also of an earlier example — " the cathedral 
church that stands in the midst of our city: 99 no 
one of the words taken separately denotes the 
object in the speaker's mind: cathedral means 
any cathedral, and might be employed in any 
sentence where such a term was wanted, just as 
letter a may be employed in any word where 
such a letter is wanted : the same may be said of 
the other words ; and some of them, indeed, as 
of, the, our, which, in, — are among the common 
materials that serve in all sentences, as certain 
letters more than others are employed in all 
words. But when these words are put together, 
then indeed they express the particular mean- 
ing, then the thought is spelt: and thus it 
might be shewn in any sentence, that the words 
composing it are on the footing of letters com- 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

posing a word. The two cases would indeed be 
exactly parallel, were every person allowed to 
follow his own fancy in the spelling of words; but 
the rules of orthography are fixed, and they alone 
spell correctly who spell in one particular way. 
But in the spelling of his thoughts by words, 
every person is allowed to follow his own me- 
thod. Hence the endless varieties of style, and 
the possibility of expressing a thought awkwardly 
or confusedly, though conceived with clearness. 
If this account of the nature of language be 
correct, it is evident that Home Tooke never 
could have explained the difference between the 
noun and the verb on the principle on which he 
set out ; nor is it true that the verb arose from 
the noun, but the noun from the verb. Even 
the verb, as employed in a sentence in conjunc- 
tion with other parts of speech, is artificial : the 
natural verb is itself a sentence, as are the im- 
peratives go, come, forbear ', hark! hist/ &c. ; but 
in order to suit the purposes of speech, the verb 
is made capable of being less comprehensive, 
and instead of being itself a sentence^ it can, 
when necessary, be a mere sign to indicate a 
sentence. Thus in the examples, George is tall, 
George is walking, the artificial verb merely in- 
dicates that a thought or judgment is expressed j 
for the phrases tall George and George walking, 
sufficiently designate the objects conceived, and 



IS INTRODUCTION. 

it is only the absence of the artificial verb that 
forbids them to be understood as sentences. 
Strictly speaking, then, the artificial verb is not 
the pnpa, the dictum, the word, or communica- 
tion ; for that appellation belongs to the whole 
sentence ; but we are justified in continuing the 
title, because, without its aid, the word could 
not have been formed, and because it is the only 
part of speech which is capable, on occasion, of 
being by itself a word *. 

This artifice of converting words into the 
mere grammatical materials of other words or 
sentences, is, in fact, the great artifice of lan- 
guage 5 and if, from simple sentences we advance 
to complex, we shall find that this is still the 
artifice on which we proceed. Thus, for in- 
stance, George is tall; The cathedral church stands 
in the midst of our city, are words or sentences > 
but George who is tall; The cathedral church that 
stands in the midst of our city, are not sentences, 

* Quinctilian, speaking of the noun and. the verb, says, 
'* Allerum est quod loquimur, alterum de quo loquimur." Lib. 
i. cap. 4. : and this opinion Home Tooke quotes and adopts. 
(See his Work, Vol. i. p. 51.) Yet I still assert that this divi- 
sion into de quo and quod holds true only of the terms. In 
the sentences given above, my idea is tall George, or George 
walking; and if I conceive George in any other way, my con- 
ception is a different and a new idea. — When the sentence 
consists of a pronoun in the first or second person, and a verb, 
what becomes of the division into quod and de quo? 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

though the artificial verb remains in them as be- 
fore. We immediately understand that they do 
not express the actual recognition of the speaker, 
but are the mere materials by which he proposes 
to express it, and we expect another artificial 
verb, as the sign that the word is formed ; as, 
George, who is tall, walks with long strides; The 
cathedral church that stands in the midst of our 
city is much admired. Thus it is that the longest 
and most complicate sentences are made; and 
thus it is that language, from being the mere 
interpreter, becomes the instrument of reason. 
For that artifice, which is the mere necessity of 
language while the judgments or thoughts which 
we have to express are particular in their nature, 
becomes an advantage of infinite importance 
when from particulars we ascend to universals ; 
we then make use of words to assist us in our 
thoughts ; we work with them as the algebraist 
works with the letters which he makes to stand 
for predetermined quantities; we form the sub- 
ject or materials of a judgment out of a former 
judgment; or, as logicians say, the predicate of 
one proposition becomes the subject of the next ; 
and we arrive at general conclusions of the 
utmost importance to our conduct and happiness, 
which would for ever have defied the grasp of 
our minds, but for the assistance of so powerful 
an aid. 

c 2 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

Thus we see the gradual steps by which the 
language of nature becomes the language of art*, 
and how, in this last shape, it is more fitted for 
the uses of a reasonable creature. Yet, though 
it boasts, in this shape, of a precision which thfr 
language of nature could never attain, yet on 
many occasions, and those the most common, 
we feel that its precision is accompanied by a 

* The account of language here given is not intended to in- 
terfere with the question respecting the divine origin of 
speech. It has always been deemed allowable to employ an 
hypothetical statement of its formation and gradual advance 
from rudeness to perfection, in order to unfold its theory ; and 
this method is adopted on the present occasion without any 
intention of questioning the scriptural account ; which indeed 
might easily be shewn not to be adverse to the one here given. 
In one way, at least, the present statement shews that speech, 
under any circumstances, must be of divine origin; for it ex- 
plains it as the necessary result of powers originally bestowed 
on us by our Creator ; it exhibits the progress from natural 
cries to artificial signs as being contemplated and provided for, 
in the constitution of the human mind; it shews the develope- 
ment of the parts of speech to be necessary and unavoidable ; 
and that men, being placed in society, and endowed with 
powers for observation, reflection, comparison, and judgment, 
must become pepoves or voice-dividers with as much certainty 
as they become bipeds or walkers on two legs, though they 
are born neither the one nor the other. In these respects the 
present differs from preceding hypotheses, which, in order to 
explain the origin of the parts of speech, exhibit men as hav- 
ing been led to invent them, by reflecting, on abstract and 
metaphysical principles, that such words were necessary. 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

sluggishness that little accords with the rapidity 
and fervour of our conceptions, and we look 
about in vain for a more ready and forcible in- 
terpreter, such as the language of nature would 
be, if it could have the precision of the language 
of art. 

Could I embody and unbosom now 

That which is most within me — could I wreak 

My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw 

Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak, 

All that I would have sought, and all I seek, 

Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe — into ONE WORD, 

And that one word were lightning — I would speak; 

But as it is, I live and die unheard, 

With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. 

The Third Canto of Childe Harold's 
Pilgrimage, Stanza xcvii. 

Now, as by the steps which have been pointed 
out, we render language capable of expressing 
all the thoughts we can conceive, and of serving 
as the interpreter of much more knowledge than 
we could have attained without its Kelp j so in 
order that the expression may correspond with 
the unity of the thought, we return on those 
steps, and, as far as possible, without losing the 
advantage gained, we make artificial language 
approach the simplicity of the language of na- 
ture. This is the secret of all the relative, com- 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

plex, and general terms with which languages 
abound, and which are complex only inasmuch 
as they are abbreviations of sentences : this is the 
cause that verbs and nouns have lost the charac- 
ter they possessed in the early stage of the for- 
mation of artificial language, and have dwindled 
into abbreviations under the names of preposi- 
tion, conjunction, &c. ; and this is the secret in 
the construction of long and complex sentences, 
in which the several parts are merely gramma- 
tical divisions, that serve, in their united capa- 
city, to express but one thought. The art of 
Elocution is guided throughout by the same 
secret principle, and is, in fact, the art of effect- 
ing the same purpose ky the manner of pronounc- 
ing artificial language. The means which it 
employs are partly artificial and conventional, 
like the medium which is to be assisted ; con- 
sisting of inflections of the voice that mark the 
relative parts of a sentence, and unite them into 
one whole : and they partly consist in the adop- 
tion of the language of nature itself, which is 
made to accompany the artificial signs. The 
manner in which we employ these means, in 
order to secure the end, is the subject of the 
second and of the third chapter of the theory to 
be developed: for, in accordance with the divi- 
sion stated at the beginning of this Introduction, 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

it is proposed, in the first place, to consider the 
materials of language without regard to their sig- 
nificance. 



If the preceding account of the nature of artificial speech 
should be deemed a true one, I am bound to acknowledge my 
obligations to the works of Mr. Dugald Stewart, which alone 
guided my steps in the inquiry. However, when I formed the 
opinions contained in the foregoing essay, I had seen no other 
work of Mr. Stewart's than the first volume of the Philosophy 
of the Human Mind; for, engaged in a laborious profession, 
my time scarcely allows me to read any other books than such 
as seem immediately to relate to it ; and Mr. Stewart's Philo- 
sophical Essays, from an ignorance of the subjects embraced 
by them, had never attracted my attention. The preceding 
Essay is copied from a lecture, which, two years ago, I read 
before the Philosophical Society of London, at the time when 
the Dukes of Kent and Sussex were its patrons, and Earl Carys- 
fort the president. Since that time I have perused Mr. Stew- 
art's Essay On the Tendency of some late Philological Specula- 
tions, and am highly gratified to find, that the opinions on the 
subject of language which I had formed from the perusal of 
his other work, are confirmed by the opinions of Mr. Stewart 
himself, so far as he has had occasion to express them inciden- 
tally in the course of the Essay just named. I think the fol- 
lowing passages will prove that I am not mistaken : 

" In reading the enunciation of a proposition, we are apt to 
fancy that for every word contained in it, there is an idea pre- 
sented to the understanding ; from the combination and com- 
parison of which ideas, results that act of the mind called 
judg?nent. So different is all this from fact, that our words, 
when examined separately, are often as completely insignifi- 
cant as the letters of which they are composed; deriving their 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

meaning solely from the connection or relation in which they 
stand toothers." Philosophical Essays, Essay V. Chapter 1st. 
'* When we listen to a language which admits of such 
transpositions in the arrangement of words as are familiar to us 
in Latin, the artificial structure of the discourse suspends, in a 
great measure, our conjectures about the sense, till, at the 
close of the period, the verb, in the very instant of its utter- 
ance, unriddles the cenigma. Previous to this, the former words 
and phrases resemble those detached and unmeaning patches 
of different colours, which compose what opticians call an ana* 
morphosis; while the effect of the verb, at the end, may be 
compared to that of the mirror by which the anamorphosis is 
reformed, and which combines these apparently fortuitous ma- 
terials into a beautiful portrait or landscape. In instances of 
this sort, it will be generally found, upon an accurate exami- 
. nation, that the intellectual act, as far as we are able to trace it, 
s altogether simple, and incapable of analysis; and that the 
elements into which we flatter ourselves we have resolved it, 
are nothing more than the grammatical elements of speech; — 
the logical doctrine about the comparison of ideas bearing a 
much closer affinity to the task of a school-boy in parsing his 
lesson, than to the researches of philosophers, able to form a. 
just conception of the mystery to be explained. " Idem. 



CHAPTER I. 

MECHANICAL READING, OR PRONUNCIATION. 



Quod est igitur in his doctoris officium ? In primis vitia, si qua 
sunt, oris, emendet: ut expressa sint verba, ut suis quaeque 
literae sonis enuncientur. Quinct. 



1 . PRONUNCIATION, AND ITS OBJECTS EXPLAINED. 

In the present chapter, the term Pronunciation, 
less comprehensive than when it signifies Deli- 
very in general, but more comprehensive than 
when it merely refers to the proper manner of 
sounding single words, is employed to include 
whatever is necessary to the just and harmonious 
utterance of a sentence, when the meaning is 
not suffered to influence the manner. A reader 
who has no other purpose in the repetition of a 
passage than to exercise the vocal organs, may 
be said merely to pronounce it; the clerk in 
a court of justice, who, in rehearsing a law-in- 
strument, feels that he is no more required to 
keep his attention awake to the meaning, than 
the copying-clerk who wrote it, may, in the same 
confined sense, be said to pronounce it. But in 
these and similar cases, however the sense may 
be disregarded, the written stops should be at- 
tended to ; all the words should be justly sound- 
8 



26 PRONUNCIATION, 

ed, and be linked together in smooth unbroken 
succession ; the articulation should be firm, dis- 
tinct, harmonious; the accents of the voice 
should rise and fall on those words to which the 
custom of the language assigns them, and should 
keep such distances from each other, that some 
degree of rhythmus is perceptible. These are 
the qualifications to which the present chapter is 
designed to lead the student^ and which he must 
labour to attain, before he can flatter himself 
with having laid a proper foundation for excel- 
lencies of a higher and nobler kind. The pro- 
nunciation which is acquired by habit alone, 
however correct and even elegant it may appear 
in common conversation, should never be taken 
as the ground-work of the superstructure. Form- 
ed by no certain principles, it will always be 
found imperfect when brought to the test of 
slow and distinct reading - 7 and it may with truth 
be asserted, there is not a single person that has 
passed through none other than the usual forms 
of education, whose pronunciation is not capable 
of being thoroughly remoulded and improved, 
by returning to the simple elements of speech, 
and acquiring systematically what he had before 
acquired on the loose warranty of custom. The 
most fertile source of this improvement will be 
found in an attention to the nature of the conso- 
nants — elements in the manner of uttering 



AND ITS OBJECTS EXPLAINED. 27 

which, it is scarcely supposed two people can 
differ, and which are consequently little under- 
stood and little cultivated. But not only do 
strength and distinctness depend on the proper 
utterance of the consonants; even melody may 
be assisted by them: and those hard, harsh, hiss- 
ing sounds so much objected to our language 
by foreigners, abounding as it does with conso- 
nants, are much more the effect of an ill pronun- 
ciation, than of any natural defect in the lan- 
guage itself*. What chiefly defeats the end of 
study in the improvement of Pronunciation, are 
the confused and inadequate notions of vowels 
and consonants with which learners set forward. 
At the first mention of those terms, every one 
thinks of the letters of the alphabet, five of which 
he has been taught to call the vowels, and the 
rest, the consonants. But vowels and consonants 
are sounds, not figures described upon paper. 
In a language like the Italian, where sounds and 

* In the variety and harmony of its consonants, and in the 
changes they undergo in order to slide smoothly into each 
other, no other modern language approaches so near to the 
ancient Greek as the English. The only difference is, that the 
Greeks, who constantly employed the art of writing in subser- 
viency to the art of speaking, made their orthography always 
comply with their pronunciation; while we, by confining our 
study only to our books, fail to observe the change of the con- 
sonants in writing, and by this means suffer their excellences 
to pass unobserved and unimproved. 
3 



28 VOWELS AND CONSONANTS. 

letters are almost uniformly respondent, this 
false way of speaking may be of little ill conse- 
quence ; but in our language it is important to 
be more precise, and to let it be distinctly under- 
stood when we are speaking of letters, and when 
of sounds. It is solely from the neglect of this 
distinction that the grammarian and student so 
commonly fail, the one to convey, and the other 
to obtain, a just understanding of those elements 
of speech, which they are accustomed every in- 
stant to employ. To say that the word ought 
contains but one vowel and one consonant, 
could hardly fail to seem a strange assertion : 
every one immediately recurs to the orthography, 
and recollecting the several letters o, u, g, k 9 and 
t 9 thinks there must be a mistake. But the or- 
thography is not in question : the appeal should 
be to the ear, not to the eye. To render the 
student competent to this appeal, let him attend* 
for awhile, to the following considerations* 



2. VOWELS AND CONSONANTS. 

If we pronounce the monosyllabic word awe, 
and setting aside all recollection of its spelling, 
demand of the ear in what it consists, we shall 
find it to be nothing more than a simple utter- 



VOWELS AND CONSONANTS. 29 

ance of the voice, the sound of which has that 
peculiar modification from the peculiar position 
of the mouth : in other words, it is a simple vowel, 
that is to say, a voice sound. The interjection 
ah is another such sound, different from the other, 
because the position of the mouth is different. 
The name of the letter e is another. If the two 
sounds last mentioned are uttered in instantane- 
ous succession, with one impulse or effort, they 
form the word eye, which is either the name of 
the organ of sight, or the personal pronoun I, or 
the name of the letter u Thus combined, the 
two sounds count to the ear but as one. Let 
this compounded sound be followed by a hissing, 
formed by forcing the breath between the tip of 
the tongue and upper gum, kept in gentle con- 
tact, and the word ice will be formed. If instead 
of forcing the breath, we endeavour to force the 
voice, the hiss is converted into a buzz, and the 
word ice becomes eyes. Let the same compound- 
ed sound be preceded by a forcible expulsion of 
the breath, and the word eye, I, or i, is convert- 
ed into the word high. Return to the word first 
mentioned, awe : pronounce it, and, in finishing, 
place the tip of the tongue to the upper gum, as 
was done in pronouncing ice, preparation being 
also made at the same moment to force forward 
the breath as in that instance ; but instead of suf- 
fering it to make its way between the tongue and 



30 VOWELS AND CONSONANTS. 

gum, as before, check it for a moment, and then 
forcibly separating the tongue and gum, suffer it, 
in that manner, to explode : in this way is formed 
the word which was asserted to have in it but 
one vowel and one consonant, namely, the word 
ought. If in bringing the tongue and gum into 
contact, the voice is not wholly checked, but is 
kept murmuring in the throat, and the tongue 
and gum then forcibly separated as before, the 
word ought is changed into aud, the former part 
of the word aud-ience. In all the preceding in- 
stances the vowel sounds, in being properly pro- 
nounced, require a certain duration or protrac- 
tion : if instead of thus dwelling on the vowel 
sound in the last instance, the action of the 
tongue and gum suddenly stops, or shuts in, the 
efflux of the voice at the very instant of its first 
exertion, by this means the syllable aud is con- 
verted into the word odd. — These examples, if 
they have been properly understood, afford spe- 
cimens of every species of element out of which 
words are formed. The words awe, ah, and e, 
are examples of simple vowels, or, in equivalent 
terms, simple voice sounds. The word eye or I, 
is an example of a diphthongal vowel, that is to 
say, a double voice sound. The hissing produced 
by forcing the breath between the tongue and gum, 
as at the end of the word ice, and the explosive ef- 
fect of separating these organs after the breath has 



VOWELS AND CONSONANTS. 31 

for a moment been checked, as at the end of the 
word ought, are specimens of what may be termed 
breath consonants*. The buzzing noise which 
was formed at the end of the word eyes, and the 
obscure murmur of the voice within the throat 
with the subsequent separation of the organs at 
the end of aud and odd, are examples of what 
may be called voice consonants t. The forcible 
expulsion of the breath which converts the word 
eye or 7, into high, is, properly speaking, neither 
a vowel nor a consonant, but is justly designated 
when we term it the aspirate t. The vowel sound 
in odd, which seems to be shut in by the follow- 
ing consonant, and which the just pronunciation 
of the word will not permit us to lengthen, let 

* The latter consonant is one of those usually called mutes, 
on account of the momentary cessation of all sound, both of 
the breath and voice. As, however, these mutes require an 
expulsion of the breath, and are not a mere contact of the or- 
gans, as the name might lead us to suppose, it is judged proper, 
for the sake of simplicity of arrangement, to call them breath 
consonants. 

f The latter consonant is usually called an impure or a flat 
mute. But why call it mute, if, in forming it, the voice may 
be heard ? 

J Murray, the author of the well-known Grammar, quotes, 
from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, an assertion, that the sound 
here spoken of is something more than a mere aspirate. Try 
whether and requires any thing more than a forcible expulsion 
of the breath before it to make it hand. 



S2 VOWELS AND CONSONANTS. 

our delivery be ever so slow, may* with propriety, 
be denominated a stopped or shut vowel sound ; 
while, in all other cases, vowels must be consi- 
dered open, whether circumstances render them 
long or short, or whether, in quality, they are 
broad, narrow, or contracted* : the broad sound 
awe, for instance, is to be considered open both 
in audience and audacious, though in the latter 
word it will probably be shorter, because it is not 
accented as in the other. And so the narrow 
sound e in decent, and the same sound in devout, 
in both is to be esteemed an open sound, though, 
for the reason just given, it will be longer in one 
than in the other. The same remark applies to 
the contracted sound o in oval, and in opinion. 
This distinction of the vowels into the open and 

* To call a sound broad, narrow, or contracted, is certainly but 
an obscure way of explaining its quality ; for broad and narrow 
are qualities of objects of sight or touch, not of hearing. Lan- 
guage is defective in not having proper terms by which to con- 
vey these simple ideas. That the student may not be misled 
by the catachresis necessarily resorted to on this occasion, let 
him understand, by abroad sound, one that requires the mouth 
to be broadly opened ; by a narrow sound, one that makes the 
mouth narrower by bringing the upper and lower parts nearer 
together, and extending it at the sides ; and by a contracted 
sound, one that lessens the mouth by a round contraction of the 
lips. By some writers, open and shut are employed in the 
same sense as broad and narrow are here employed ; but the 
student observes that those terms are used above in a very dif- 
ferent sense. 



VOWELS AND CONSONANTS. 33 

the shut, is the only one that, for practical pur- 
poses, it will be necessary to regard. To dis- 
tinguish them accurately into the simple and the 
diphtkongal 9 v?ou\d lead to unnecessary, and, what 
the learner would find, perplexing niceties. — 
Some of them, indeed, are universally acknow- 
ledged to be diphthongal, as the vowel we hear 
in boy, and that we hear in ?iow. But that we 
hear in eye, I, high, buy, &c. (for the vowel is in 
all the same) is likewise, as has been shewn, a 
diphthongal sound ; and some others, which 
usually pass for simple sounds, would, if skilfully 
examined, be also found of the same description: 
for it matters not whether a diphthong be de- 
noted on paper by one letter, or two, or more: it 
is for the ear to judge whether it be of a simple 
or compound nature. Luckily, however, as the 
examination would be perplexing, it is not, for 
practical purposes, important ; and the distinc- 
tion above mentioned, into vowels open and shut, 
needs alone to be regarded. With a view to an 
equal simplicity of arrangement, the student is 
advised to observe no other division of the conso- 
nants than that which separates them into breath 
consonants and voice consonants, disregarding 
the ordinary classification into aspirates, semi- 
vowels, mutes, and semi-mutes. 



34 



3. VOWELS. 



The vowels of the English language are as 
follows : 

First, those open vowels which are severally de- 
noted by a, e, i, o, u, when we name the letters. 

Secondly, those shut vowels which are sever- 
ally denoted by the same letters in the syllables 
at, et, it, ot, nt. 

These ten sounds are the regular vowels, or, 
in other words, the sounds which the vowel let- 
ters most commonly denote. 

Thirdly, the open vowels heard in far, (i. e. ah) 
Jail, (i. e. awe) move, (i. e. oo) and in fur, boy, 
and now. 

And, lastly, the shut vowel heard in pull : mak- 
ing, in the whole, seventeen sounds, clearly distin- 
guished from one another either by the different 
position of the mouth in forming them, or by 
their difference as to open and shut*. 

* All the shut sounds are the same, or nearly the same, as 
some of the open : the shut sound in the syllable at, is nearly 
the same as the open vowel in far, — nearly the same, for it is 
not quite so broad. The shut sound in the syllable et, is nearly 
the same as the open sound a, — nearly the same, because the 
latter is liable, when prolonged, to become diphthongal, by 
finishing with the sound of e. The shut sound in it, is the 
same as the open sound e. The shut sound in ot, the same as 
the open sound in fall. The shut sound in the ut, the same as 



VOWELS. 35 

It is one great characteristic of a good speaker 
that he employs a definite number of sounds, 
which he utters with precision, distinctness, and 
in their proper places ; that is, in those places 
to which the best usage of the language assigns 
them, without any further regard to orthography 
than usage permits. There are very few occa- 
sions on which a vowel may be allowed to re- 
main doubtful between one and another of the 
sounds given above, — so few, that it will be as 
well to point them out at once. They are as 
follows : 

i. The sound represented by letter a 
final in a syllable, when without accent, is 
an indefinite sound which wavers between 
the vowel #/z and the natural vowel; (namely, 
the vowel heard in fur.) Ex. a-bound, 
ide-0, tra-duce, admira-ble. 

ii. The words to, you, your, for, the, 
which, when uttered singly, or with accent 

the open sound in fur. And the shut sound in pull, the same 
as the open sound in move. Taking away the shut sounds, 
there are only eleven remaining ; and if we further reject i, u, 
oy, and ow, which are manifestly diphthongal, or compounds 
of other sounds, we shall have only seven, the arrangement of 
which being as follows, will perhaps exhibit the natural vowels, 
which, with slight variations, will be found nearly in all lan- 
guages : awe, ah, a, e, f(«)r, o, oo. The first of these opens 
the mouth fully in all directions; — the second narrows the dis- 
tance beween the jaws, and stretches it a little at the sides; — 
D 2 



36 VOWELS. 

in composition, are severally pronounced 
too, yoo, yoor,faur, thee, permit their vowels 
to lose their distinctness, and sink, or nearly 
sink, into the natural vowel, when circum- 
stanced as in the following phrases : he goes 
to London ; she loves you ; give me your 
hand ; I wrote for his advice ; tlw day of 
the month. 

iii. The shut sound denoted by letter a, 
followed by a consonant in a syllable with- 
out accent, is a sound that wavers between 
that in at and that in ut. Ex. Combat, no- 
bleman, abjure. (N.B. The sound in ut 
is the natural vowel stopped or shut.) 

iv. The shut sound denoted by letter o 
under the same circumstances wavers be- 
tween those in ot and ut. In final syllables 
it generally acquires the latter sound de- 

the third narrows it more; —the fourth still more ; — the fifth 
relaxes it at the sides preparatory to a contraction in another 
direction, and this sound being' uttered with the mouth slightly 
opened without effort, may be called, for distinction's sake, the 
natural vowel ; — the next contracts the mouth at the sides ; and 
the last contracts it in the same manner a little more. The 
French u is a still further contraction of the last sound ; and 
between all the other vowels there may be intermediate degrees 
of narrowness or contraction, which form those differences of 
vowels observable in different provinces and different countries. 
— It should be observed, that the tongue assists in narrowing or 
enlarging the spaces within the mouth. 



VOWELS. 37 

cidedly. Ex. conjecture, method (methud,) 
cannot (cannut,) sha\\~?iot (shall-nut,) the 
value of (uv) time, from danger (frum 
danger.) 

v. The open vowel u which comes aftei 
h j> s* t, and d, circumstanced as in lute, 
sluice, juice, censure, leisure, nature, ver- 
dure, does not completely lose its charac- 
ter, and identify with the sound oo, as is 
the case with the sound denoted by letter u 
in rude, and other words where letter u 
comes after r ; nor is it pronounced so de- 
cidedly and distinctly as it ought to be 
when it comes after other consonants , as 
in cube, mute, tube, suit. 
These may be assumed, with tolerable safety, 
as the only cases of medium vowels which slow 
and distinct reading allows. Not that words 
are ever to be pronounced as they are spelled 
when good usage forbids ; not that the alpha- 
betical and syllabical sounds of the letters are 
to be retained in opposition to the great norma 
loquendi, which so often requires them to give 
way ; but that, in all other cases, the defection 
of a letter from its regular sound must be a de- 
cided change for another sound. Thus, for in- 
stance, the ou in the first syllable of courage 
must be sounded as u in ut, and the a in the 
second as the i in it. The out in wotdd, could, 



38 CONSONANTS. 

should, must be supplied by the sound of u in 
pull, ia in mink-ture must be sounded as the e 
in devout. Cases will indeed occur as to which 
of two sounds it may be best to use ; whether, 
for instance, it may be best to give the i in 
ci-licious its alphabetical sound, or the sound of 
e in devout ; but on such occasions the speaker 
must determine for himself one way or the 
other, and not suffer his pronunciation to hang 
between the two. The same decision is neces- 
sary with respect to the consonants ; but, before 
our remarks include them, they must be enu- 
merated. 



4. CONSONANTS. 

The consonant letters are b, c 9 d,f 9 g 9 h 9 
j, k 9 /, m 9 n 9 p, q 9 r, s 9 t 9 v, w 9 x, y 9 z. Of these 
setting aside c 9 j 9 q and x 9 for reasons to be 
mentioned presently, we shall have 

First, those breath consonants, which are se- 
verally denoted by f 9 h 9 k, p 9 s 9 and /, in foe 9 
hay 9 key, pay 9 say and tie. 

And secondly, those voice consonants which 
are severally denoted by b 9 d, g 9 1 9 m 9 n 9 r, v 9 w, 
y 9 and z 9 in boy 9 day, gay, low, my, no 9 ray 9 vie, 
wo, ye, and zeal. 

Beside these, there are two breath consonants 
6 



CONSONANTS. 39 

and three voice consonants, for which the al- 
phabet does not furnish appropriate marks. 

The breath consonants are those severally 
denoted by sh and th in show and thaw. 

And the voice consonants those severally de- 
noted by ng, s, and th, in ring, vision, and they. 

With regard to the letters c, j, q, and x : — c 
supplies the place of /• or s ; j denotes two 
sounds uttered in immediate succession, namely 
those denoted by d in day and s in vision ; q 
with u supplies the place of k with w ; and x 
supplies the place of k and s, or g and z. 

It appears, then, that we have twenty-two 
consonants ; and these, if auricular ly examined, 
will be found clearly distinguishable from each 
other either by the different action of the organs of 
speech in forming them, or by their difference as 
to breath or voice*. Nor does it ever happen that 
a consonant should be less decisive at one time 
than another, if we except merely the following 
case. 

Between the sound of the t and the fol- 
lowing vowel in righteous, nature, &c. there 
is decidedly interposed the sound of sh in 

* Many of the consonants have no difference as to organic 
formation, but differ only in the last mentioned respect : thus 
/, a breath consonant, corresponds with v, a voice consonant. 
And in the same manner, k corresponds- with g, p with b, s 
wilh 2, t with d, sh with 5 in vision, and th in thaw with th in 
they. 



40 USAGE THE RULE FOR 

show : and between the sound of the d and 
the following vowel in soldier, grandeur, 
&c. there is likewise decidedly interposed 
the sound of s in vision*. Analogy is strictly 
in favour of a similar pronunciation of pi- 
teous, duteous, &c. and of Indian, odious, 
he. ; but custom is not equally decisive. 
Here the speaker may take a middle course : 
let not the sounds which incline to come 
between be carefully avoided, and the or- 
gans of speech in passing from the t or d 
to the vowel, will of themselves slightly in- 
troduce them. 
Making this exception, the consonants should, 
in all cases, be pronounced firmly and distinctly ; 
and in sounding the voice consonants, as much 
voice should be uttered with them as possible, 
so as to keep them clearly distinct from those 
formed only with the breath. 



5. USAGE THE RULE FOR PRONOUNCING WORDS. 

Before the decision of utterance here re- 
commended with regard both to the vowels 

* Letter j, as was mentioned, is the usual mark for d and 
the sound of 5 in vision uttered in close succession, and ac- 
cordingly by writing soldier, grandeur, &c. with aj instead of 

3 



PRONOUNCING WORDS. 41 

and consonants, can be put in practice, it is ne- 
cessary to know what sounds really compose a 
word. Orthography, as we have seen, does not 
indicate them with any degree of certainty, 
since every letter is liable to denote other sounds 
than that to which it regularly belongs, and since 
more or fewer letters are often used than there are 
sounds in a word : what then, it may be asked, 
is the proper guide ? The answer must be the 
one already given — usage. Neither in this part 
of the volume, nor in any other, is it intended 
to oppose theory to established custom : no 
theory that regards language can be sound 
which proposes such an object. But the inten- 
tion of theory is, to lay open the secret reasons 
which influence custom, in order that they may 
operate with greater precision and certainty. 
It is presumed the student is politely educated, 
and pronounces the words of his language like 
other well-bred people*: the intention, then, 
of the foregoing remarks is, to induce him to 
analyze the sounds he employs, not that he may 

a d, we so far indicate the pronunciation. The sounds de- 
noted by / in righteous, nature, are precisely the same as are 
denoted by ch in chair, each, church, &c. 

* To those who are not so fortunate as to possess a polite 
London utterance, I take the liberty to recommend my 
Practical Grammar of English Pronunciation, as the only 
work in existence that supplies a regular course of study and 
exercise for the object it professes. 



42 USAGE THE RULE FOR 

change, but that he may improve them. As to 
doubtful cases, he cannot have a better guide 
than Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary, — a dic- 
tionary much superior to any other of the kind, 
because it reconciles custom, as far as possible, 
to itself, and to the analogies and tendencies of 
the language. It is true, fashion may have al- 
tered, and may hereafter alter, many of its de- 
cisions. When this is the case, when the stu- 
dent is certain that a word has undergone a 
change, and that the pronunciation marked 
would seem singular and uncouth, he must fol- 
low the stream and adopt the new pronuncia- 
tion. It may perhaps be thought that this is 
giving up too much to the caprice of custom, 
but the fact is, every speaker who adheres to an 
obsolete pronunciation, or ventures on a new 
one, is sure to do himself an injury 5 for, 
besides running the risk of being thought a 
pedant or a coxcomb*, he draws the attention of 
his hearers from his matter to his manner — from 

* In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold, 
Alike fantastic if too new or old; 
Be not the first by whom the new are tried, 
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. 

POPE. 

And the rule, with regard to pronunciation, will hold good 
to its full extent: an old man may be allowed to retain a few 
peculiarities of pronunciation which would be unpardonable in 
a younger one. 



PRONOUNCING WORDS. 43 

the information he conveys to the means of con- 
veying it. But, it may be asked, is there no 
merit in attempting to reduce a word to regu- 
larity? Perhaps there may be; but at all events, 
before any one attempts the task, let him 
study the natural tendencies of the language, 
without knowing which, he cannot be certain 
what is irregular and what is not, and is only 
likely, by his meddling, to render " confusion 
worse confounded." No one has a right to 
question any customary manner of sounding a 
word, who is unacquainted with the general 
rules that secretly influence custom — who is ig- 
norant, for example, of such principles as the 
following : 

i. The shortening power of the antepen- 
ultimate accent, which makes the difference 
between the a in nature, nation, patron, and 
in natural, national, patronage. 

ii. The tendency of all compound words 
to shorten the parts of which they are com- 
posed. Thus, shepherd from sheep-herd, 
vineyard from vine -yard, brealcfast from 
break-fast, knowledge from know-ledge. 

iii. The tendency of a vowel which was 
long in the present tense of a verb, to shorten 
in the past ; thus, bite in the present, be- 
comes bit in the past ; say becomes said -, 
read, read ; and hear, heard. 



44 USAGE THE RULE FOR 

iv. The power of w over the following 
sound : hence the sound given to o in 
worm, word; and the broad sound denoted 
by a in "water, wan, quantity, quality. 

v. The constant tendency of the unac- 
cented sound whose regular mark is letter 
y initial, but which is more frequently de- 
noted in part by u long, or by i or e — to 
produce changes in c, s, t, or d, preceding 
it, when the syllable which the consonant 
begins, is not accented ; as in ocean, nau- 
seous, censure, roseate, nation, nature, lec- 
ture, righteous, soldier, verdure. 

vi. The tendency of a breath consonant 
to become vocal when joined to a voice 
consonant, and vice versa. Thus p becomes 
vocal in cupboard; s is vocal in disband, 
disburse, cosmetic, boars, hams, and always 
where it forms a plural, or third person of a 
verb after a voice consonant. 

vii. The power of letter e to restore s to 
its breath sound when coming after a liquid: 
thus we say, pulse, sense, course — coursing, 
parse — parsing. 
The only means of ascertaining the reality of 
these, and of other similar principles, is, to com- 
pare with actual usage all the words of the lan- 
guage on which each of them can possibly bear; 
and if a much greater proportion (for particular 



PRONOUNCING WORDS. 45 

exceptions prove nothing) is found to agree than 
to disagree with it, the principle must be admitted 
as a rule of the language, which nothing ought 
to countervail but usage decidedly superior. 
Should the investigation necessary for arriving 
at these data be deemed too laborious, then let 
it not be thought too much to follow implicitly 
an orthoepist like Walker, who really had made 
the investigation : excepting only those cases in 
which, to agree with him, would be to violate 
indubitable usage — cases which will sometimes 
occur from the variation of usage since his Dic- 
tionary was written. To exemplify these re- 
marks by common instances — ought we say 
eether and neether [either and neither] or i-ther 
and ni4her? Mr. Walker recommends the for- 
mer pronunciation, on the ground that, as the 
words which require el to be sounded e, very 
much outnumber those that require the same 
letters to be sounded i, it therefore best agrees 
with the tendencies of the language, and good 
usage was besides not averse to that pronuncia- 
tion : to decide the question, therefore, we ought 
merely to consider whether good usage remains 
as it was. — To take one more instance — Mr. 
Walker marks the word Rome to be pronounced 
with o in its more contracted sound, as belong- 
ing to that small class of words in our language 
which require the o to be so sounded ; viz. do, 



46 INTERJUNCTION OF WORDS. 

to, prove, move, lose, &c. ; and because he did 
not think that custom permitted it to run with 
the larger, and therefore the regular current, 
which gives to o its alphabetical sound: — the 
question then is, whether custom remains as it 
was, or whether it has become more favourable 
to the regular sound. Where reasons almost 
balance, every person must make his choice : — 
to argue the point strongly either for or against, 
would prove the disputant to be ignorant of the 
real grounds of the question. 



6. INTERJUNCTION OF WORDS. 

Hitherto pronunciation has been consi- 
dered only with regard to words individually. 
We have next to put them together, and strength 
and facility of interjunetion are first to be attend- 
ed to. In the pronunciation of a sentence, the 
breath and voice, between the pauses of sense, 
ought to be in continual flow, and the beginning 
sound of one word to follow the final sound of 
another without break or interruption. Every 
member of a sentence, considered in this light, 
is an unbroken chain of varied syllables, and the 
organs of speech compose a curious piece of 
mechanism, in which, from the formation of the 
first sound to the finishing of the last, there is no 



INTERJUNCTION OF WORDS. 47 

cessation from action. An imperfect reader 
fails to preserve this continuity of sound and 
motion, and offends the ear by frequent and sud- 
den interruptions, either from a want of flexi- 
bility in the organs to start with ease and readi- 
ness from one position to another, or from a 
misguided effort to distinguish the finishing of 
one word and the beginning of the next, when 
final and initial sounds seem in danger of being 
mistaken by a hearer. Thus, if reading slowly, 
he will perhaps check himself between the words 
chief object, that they may not sound as if written 
chief f object: yet, if the next word begins with 
the consonant that ends the preceding word, as 
in chief folly, he will probably feel equally scru- 
pulous, and break the continuity, that he may 
utter the consonant twice. He will be guilty of 
the same fault between such words as less zeal, 
atchieve fame, "weep bitterly, quick gaze, because 
the consonants which meet in the junction of those 
words are alike in respect to formation, and dif- 
fer only in a change from breath to voice, or 
voice to breath, a change which he finds a diffi- 
culty in accomplishing. The meeting of two 
vowels, as in new onset, free egress, go over, no 
aim, no honour, true heir, will be another cause 
of this defect ; a difficulty in forming the aspirate 
without some previous preparation another ; as, 
see him, true happiness, his handkerchief, a rash 



48 THE ACCENTS OR NOTES 

hypothesis, a riding horse; and the meeting of 
ng before a vowel another ; as in hanging arras, 
being eminent, writing always, striking object. 
These faults must be removed by frequent prac- 
tice, and in the exercises which are employed 
for this particular purpose, the interj unction may 
be made with greater force than would be pro- 
per on other occasions; and where p, b, t, d, k, 
or g, finishes a sentence or clause of a sentence, 
the separation of the organs should make the ear 
sensible of a kind of rebound, similar to that 
which constitutes the French e mute. 



7. THE ACCENTS OR NOTES OF THE SPEAKING 
VOICE. 

Supposing the sounds of a sentence (vow- 
els and consonants) to be justly pronounced, 
and properly interj oined, we have next to con- 
sider the notes or accents which accompany 
those sounds. That a sentence is never pro- 
nounced in a perfect monotone, except by a 
chanting school-boy or a parish-clerk, may be 
made evident by designedly uttering a sentence 
in unison with any single key of a musical in- 
strument*. On the other hand, we evidently 

* With this simple experiment to prove the contrary, it is 
astonishing- that they who thought at all on the subject should 



OF THE SPEAKING VOICE. 49 

do not change from note to note in the same 
manner as in singing, because singing and speak- 
ing would then coincide. The fact is, the notes 
of speech never rest in any one part of the mu- 
sical scale, but are continually moving up and 
down within an interval greater or smaller, and 
are precisely of the same nature as those sliding 

ever have imagined that a sentence, naturally pronounced, had 
no change of key. Yet Mr. Sheridan compares the notes of 
speech to those of a drum, differing only in degrees of force; 
and Mr. John Rice, a teacher of Elocution, colemporary with 
Sheridan, informs us, in his Introduction to the Art of Reading, 
that, u He repeated, at different times, several passages from 
Milton and other poets in the hearing of one of the greatest 
masters of the science of music, who after paying the utmost 
attention to the several articulate sounds in each sentence, de- 
clared them to be all of the same tone." — I know not whether 
the merit of having first given a better account of the matter, 
is due to Mr. Joshua Steele, author of the Prosodia Ratio* 
nalis, or to the anonymous author of The Art of Delivering 
Written Language; since both these treatises in their first edi- 
tion, bear the same date, 1775. But the merit of giving an 
account still nearer the truth, and of having formed a prac- 
tical system on the subject to be used in teaching, is undoubt- 
edly due to Mr. John Walker. In one respect Mr. Walker 
has erred : he confesses himself entirely ignorant of music, 
and hence has been led to say, that a succession of words 
is sometimes pronounced in a perfect monotone, when it is 
monotonous by comparison only. I have remarked this error 
in my Grammar of Pronunciation, and have since found a 
similar remark in an Essay on the Accents, Prosody, &c. of the 
English Language, by Mr. Odell 



50 THE ACCENTS OR NOTES 

tones on a violin, when the string is not pressed 
at one place, but the finger is carried up and 
down upon it. All the syllables of every word, 
when we read or speak unaffectedly, are in tones 
of this kind: in the comparatively even tenor of 
quiet conversation, it is not indeed very easy to 
distinguish them 5 but in impassioned discourse, 
in loud angry contention, they assume a more 
decided character \ and hence, a number of these 
tones repeated briskly on a violin, give a ludi- 
crous idea of scolding. These tones or notes of 
speech are called by modern writers on Elocu- 
tion, Inflections; by the ancients they were term- 
ed Accents. In our language, the term accent is 
generally supposed to include nothing more than 
a force or stress of the voice on one syllable of a 
word above others. It is, nevertheless, matter 
of experiment, that accent in this latter sense, 
and inflection, uniformly go together ; for it is 
only on syllables we call accented that a new or 
a renewed inflection takes place, the inflection 
of the accented syllable being continued, if there 
is no pause after it, during the unaccented sylla- 
bles following till the arrival of the next accent; 
and then, and not till then, the voice either 
changes its inflection, or goes back to its former 
pitch, and commences the same inflection over 
again \ or to express the whole in a few words, 



OF THE SPEAKING VOICE. 51 

accent of force, uniformly coincides in our lan- 
guage with accent of tone # . 

• The greater force which generally accompanies the accent- 
ed syllable does not seem essential, the accent of tone being of 
itself sufficient to distinguish any syllable on which it is placed, 
inasmuch as whatever slide may precede or follow it, is merely 
a preparation for, or a continuation of that slide. Let the 
following word be pronounced as an example: Compensation. 
Standing by itself this word must have a grave or downward 
accent, in the same manner as if it finished a declarative sen- 
tence. But it is an instance in which the accent is not to take 
place till the third syllable — the voice therefore slides gently 
upwards during the first two syllables, till having reached the 
proper place, the downward accent commences, and is con- 
tinued throughout the word. Or let the word be in a situa- 
tion which requires it to have the acute or upward accent. 
Did you say compensation ? — compensation ? The voice now 
slides gently downwards on the first two syllables, and on the 
proper syllable the required accent takes place, which, as be- 
fore, is continued throughout the word. Thus an accented 
syllable (called accented by pre-eminence) will always be 
clearly distinguishable from other syllables, though it should 
not be accompanied by any increase of force. The discovery 
of this fact, coupled with his musical prepossessions, led Mr. 
Joshua Steele into those singular opinions respecting the 
Melody and Measure of Speech, which form the subject of his 
Prosodia Rationalis. It is pretty well known that the first note 
of every bar in music is called by musicians the accented note. 
Mr. Steele thinks the term improperly applied, and prefers 
calling it the heavy note ; but this heavy note, as he shews, is 
not necessarily piu forte — more forcible than another. Now 
as he had discovered that the accented syllable in speech is 
not necessarily more forcible than another, and had not dis- 
covered how that syllable really manifests itself, he took it for 

E 2 



52 THE ACCENTS OR NOTES 

Thus, in the following sentence : 

EXAMPLE I. 

Disappointment-repeated destroys-expectation. 

The first change of tone is at the accented 

granted there could be no other difference between it and the 
other syllables of a word, than between the accented note, and 
the other notes of a bar of music. Accordingly he thinks the 
term accented as improper in this case as in the other, and 
calls the accented syllable the heavy syllable. But without 
stopping to inquire what may be the meaning of the word 
heavy, as applied to sounds, unless force is in some degree in- 
cluded under it, we may be easily convinced that what is 
called accent in speech is a very different thing from what is 
called (perhaps improperly) accent in music. Compare to- 
gether the accented and unaccented syllables of a word when 
rhythmus is out of the question — there^is an evident difference 
between them — a difference which the dullest ear can distin- 
guish — a difference independent of the rhythmus. Compare 
together any successive equal notes of music, one of which was 
first in a bar, and which are detachedly repeated, precisely in 
the same manner as they were played by a musician who kept 
time, but was careful not to make one piu forte than another : — 
who will be able to discover the distinctive difference which it 
is impossible not to discover between an accented and an un- 
accented syllable? Mr. Steele's whole system, then, is unsound 
at the very foundation, and the melody and measure of speech 
must be explained on other grounds than those which he has 
assumed. Yet, it is true, the tones of speech are sliding tones 
such as he describes; it is true that language has its rhythmus, 
which depends on the constant return of the accented syllable. 
And this mixture of truth and error, in an attempt so im- 
posing as that of establishing a complete parallel between the 
two arts, misled Mr. Steele himself, and may probably mislead 
many a wrong-headed enthusiast who shall follow him. Ac- 



OF THE SPEAKING VOICE. 53 

syllable of disappointment ; here the downward 
inflection or accent is continued through that 
and the two following syllables : the next accent 
is an upward inflection, which, if no pause is 
made after the word repeated, is continued in the 
same manner through all the following syllables : 
the next accent is a similar upward inflection, to 
perform which, the voice necessarily returns to 
its former pitch ; this having also been continued 
through the following unaccented syllables, is 
changed at the proper syllable for the downward 
inflection, which concludes the sentence. A 
sentence wholly or partly composed of monosyl- 
labic words, is equally liable to the same varieties 
with one composed of words of many syllables j 
for some monosyllables are equivalent to the ac- 
cented, and some to the unaccented syllables of 
longer words. Thus, for instance, the following 
sentence, so far as accent is concerned, is pre- 
cisely on a parallel with the other : 

EXAMPLE II. 

To-be-marrM-in-our-hopes is-a-check-we-are-bdrn-to. 



cording to him, there is no such thing in speech as accent by 
distinction, but each syllable has its accent independently, as 
it might have its note if the sentence were sung- instead of 
spoken; and according to him " Every sentence in our lan- 
guage, whether prose or verse, goes in minuet or jig time" 
with as much regularity as music. 



54 VARIABLE NUMBER OF 

To a person acquainted with musical notation, 
the following illustration, in which the tones of 
the preceding sentences are signified on the five 
lines will shew at once the meaning of all the 
preceding remarks. 

EXAMPLE III. 




Disap pointment re peated de stroys expec tation. 
To be marr'd in our hopes is a check we are born to. 

If a suspensive pause is made after the word 
repeated in the first line, and hopes in the second, 
the unaccented syllables following those words 
will be cut off from their connection with the 
preceding accent, and in such case the voice will 
slide gently downwards in pronouncing them ; 
but if no pause is made, they will be embraced 
by the preceding accent, and the voice, having 
completed one upward inflection, will return at 
once, and recommence the next. 



8. VARIABLE NUMBER OF ACCENTS IN A SENTENCE. 

According to the principles exhibited in 
the introductory essay, a sentence, in point of 
expression, is but a single word, the parts of 



ACCENTS IN A SENTENCE. 55 

which it is composed being merely grammatical 
divisions more or less closely connected in this 
respect, but not at all related to any correspond- 
ent division in the thought, which, in their united 
capacity, they serve to express. As to pronun- 
ciation, therefore, we may expect that a sentence 
will be liable to the same affections as a single in- 
dependent word, and, making the necessary allow- 
ances for differences of length, this will be found 
universally the case. A single independent word, 
when it consists of many syllables, is liable to have 
more than one accent, as jjrocrnstindtion, indivi- 
sibility : hence, also, a sentence, in proportion to 
its length, will have manyaccents; but the accents 
of a single independent word, excepting the 
principal accent, may be omitted or retained at 
pleasure. The preceding words, for example, 
may be pronounced either of the following ways : 

EXAMPLE I. 

Thus, also, in a sentence, there are some prin- 
cipal accents which cannot be neglected; but the 
others, (provided the omission of them does not 
give the sentence an unintended oblique mean- 
ing*) will yield to the taste of the reader. The 

* This would be the case, were any accent omitted in any of 



56 VARIABLE NUMBER OF 

following example is from Mr. Walker, who says 
it may be pronounced with ten accents, or only 
four, with no other difference of effect than sen- 
tentiousness of manner in one case, and collo- 
quial familiarity in the other. 

EXAMPLE II. 

Pitch upon that course of life which is the most excellent, 
and custom will make it the most delightful. 

EXAMPLE III. 

Pitch upon that course of life which is the most excellent, 
and custom will make it the most delightful. 

To pursue the comparison further : In a single 
independent word, there are some syllables which 
cannot, at the speaker's option, receive a se- 
condary accent, but must be without accent: 
so also in sentences, there are certain monosyl- 
labic words that are not liable, like other mono- 
syllabic words, to be accented or not, but, by the 
general custom of the language, are always with- 
out accent*. But in a single independent word, 

the sentences previously illustrated: not that the meaning 
might not be more forcible, but it would go beyond the plain 
meaning. Opportunity will occur for explaining this subject 
hereafter. 

* These are chiefly articles, prepositions, and generally 
conjunctions. The word upon, though of two syllables, is 
without accent in both ways of pronouncing the foregoing sen- 
tence. The auxiliary verbs are generally without accent, but 



ACCENTS IN A SENTENCE. 57 

a syllable which, on all common occasions, is un- 
accented, may receive an accent to make the 
word convey a referential meaning, as To give, 
and to forgive : and, in the same manner, a mo- 
nosyllabic word in a sentence, which, by general 
custom, never has an accent, may receive one in 
order to make the sentence convey a referential 
meaning. 

EXAMPLE IV. 

He rides from London. 
He rides to London. No, he rides from London. 

Thou shalt not steal. 
Thou shalt steal. No, thou shalt not steal. 



not so decidedly as the adverb not; for with that particle, 
they form words of two syllables, accented on the first, as can- 
not, shdll-not, will-not, do-not, &c. The first alone is written 
as one word, but they are all pronounced so. I have some- 
where met with a rule directing the negative, in these cases, 
to have the accent in preference to the auxiliary, because the 
negative designates the more important idea. But how came 
practice to have overlooked the more important idea which 
theory pretends to have discovered ? Truly for this reason, 
that the meaning of a sentence is not made up of ideas of dif- 
ferent degrees of importance, but the meaning is one and en- 
tire, and the proper manner of expressing it, is that alone 
which custom determines. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt 
not commit adultery. This is the proper accentuation in 
reading these commandments. The negative should, indeed, 
be very distinctly uttered, (as should all the words,) but not 
with accent. 



58 



9. RHYTHMUS. 



Upon a general equality of interval between 
the accents depends the rhythmus of our lan- 
guage. In verse, and numerous prose, the care 
devolves upon the writer to make the distances 
between the accents as regular as a regard to 
variety, within certain bounds, will permit; but, 
in ordinary prose, the disposition of the accents, 
except sometimes at the conclusion of the periods, 
is little attended to by the writer, and the rhyth- 
mus will depend very greatly on the reader, who, 
by having the liberty of pronouncing a sentence 
with a fewer or greater number of accents, and 
also of accelerating the utterance of an interval 
of unaccented syllables when they are many, and 
retarding it when they are few, can generally 
keep up a tolerably even rhythmus*. In com- 

* Mr. Steele is of opinion that, during all our pauses in speak- 
ing, we continue, mentally, to beat time, as during the rests in 
music, and that by such pauses co-operating with the means 
mentioned above, the accented syllables are always kept at dis- 
tances that enable us to beat true musical time at the coming 
of each accent. That this may be done when the accents are de- 
signedly or accidentally at distances nearly equal, as in Ex. iii. 
page 54, and, generally, in very regular verse ; — that it may 
be done in other composition by an artificial manner of read- 
ing, I do not deny ; but I do deny that it generally takes place in 
the ordinary drift of a good speaker's pronunciation. We do not 

8 



RHYTHMUS. 59 

mon discourse, we are less attentive to rhythmus 
than on other occasions ; and hence, in the sen- 
tence lately quoted, Pitch upon, fyc. the second 
mode of pronunciation leaves little perception of 
rhythmus. In that kind of reading, therefore, 
which imitates colloquial discourse, we may leave 
the rhythmus to the natural drift of the sen- 
tences, nor need we be at any pains to support it 
where the author himself has been negligent, 

look for the regularity of musical time in the rhythmus of speech; 
we do not expect (at least, we are not in the general habit 
of expecting,) the accents to fall at regular distances. If we 
find their return tolerably regular, the feet are equal, and we 
account the rhythmus agreeable ; if the return is irregular, the 
feet are unequal, and there is little rhythmus. It is otherwise 
with accent in music ; for there the rhythmus makes the ac- 
cent, instead of accent the rhythmus. The player having to 
measure off a certain portion of time, beats at that note at which 
the measurement may best begin, and the note is accounted 
accented, or, as Mr. Steele phrases it, affected to the heavy, in 
consequence. His hand or toe rises when half or two thirds 
of the time is elapsed, in order to be ready for the next beat, and 
as soon as the portion of time is quite finished, a new pulsation 
marks the beginning of another equal portion. In order that 
the same thing should take place in speech, it would be neces- 
sary to have the power of laying the accents of a sentence at 
every part of it where equal portions of time should be elapsed. 
But we have not this power : the accents must come where the 
customary pronunciation of the words, and the construction of 
the sentence, ordain them ; and with all the liberties of omis- 
sion, retardation, and acceleration, mentioned in the text, it will 
be impossible, with sentences in general, to reconcile strict 
musical time with a strictly natural, unaffected delivery. 



60 MECHANICAL STRUCTURE 

Mr. Walker quotes the following sentence as one 
of remarkable harshness, on account of a long 
interval of unaccented syllables which occurs to- 
wards the end. 

EXAMPLE I. 

We are always complaining our days are few, and acting as 
though there would be no end of them. 

In colloquial reading, this sentence might be 
given as the ordinary accentuation of the words 
directs ; but an oratorical or more solemn delivery 
would require a little pains from the reader to 
mend the rhythmus. For this purpose, he may 
give an accent to the words though and would, 
not a principal accent equal to that on the other 
words, but a slight secondary accent, like that 
we give to some of the syllables of a long single 
word : by this means, the ear may be satisfied, 
and the judgment not offended. — 

EXAMPLE II. 

We are always complaining our days are few, and acting as 
though there would be no end of them. 



10. MECHANICAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH VERSE. 

In verse, as the rhythmus becomes a particular 
object of the writer's attention, it should seem 
that it must depend much less on the manage- 



OF ENGLISH VERSE. 61 

ment of the reader. True it is, more care is 
generally required in reading verse to avoid, than 
to maintain, a too measured accentuation ; for, 
generally speaking, the rhythmus ought to stand 
in need of no accents, but such as we might with 
propriety adopt in reading it as prose. But since 
in prose a latitude is allowed, and one person 
will employ more or fewer accents than another, 
it becomes necessary to know, in reading verse, 
how to make use of this liberty with most advan- 
tage to the rhythmus. And as besides it very 
often happens, either through an original fault of 
the poet, or some change effected by custom in 
the accentuation of words, that the verse is ma- 
nifestly defective, it becomes still more necessary 
to know by what means to conceal or amend the 
deficiency. Some account of the mechanical 
structure of verse will therefore be necessary. 
Writers on English Versification have been at 
the pains of explaining it on the system of the 
Ancients ; and even Mr. Sheridan, who exposes 
many absurdities of this mode of treatment, di- 
vides it into the several varieties of Iambic, Tro- 
chaic, Anapaestic, and Amphibrachic, and speaks 
of the introduction of spondees, and pyrrhics, 
and dactyls, and tribrachs, in order to diversify 
those metres. But discarding the ancient terms 
altogether, which were adapted to verse depend- 



62 MECHANICAL STRUCTURE 

ing not on accent, but on quantity*, it seems 
possible to explain the Structure of English 
Verse much more easily. In the first place it 
will be found substantially of two kinds only, 
namely, dissyllabic and trisyllabic. The dissyl- 
labic has for its regular interval one unaccented 
syllable between each accent — the trisyllabic two 
unaccented syllables. All the other differences 
in English verse consist only in varying the 
length of the lines, in omitting an unaccented 

* The question which so long agitated the learned world, 
whether or not, in our English Pronunciation, we read Greek 
and Latin according to quantity, is now at rest. It is admitted, 
that while we follow our own idiom in the method of sounding 
words, and apply our own accent, though according to the 
Latin rule, we do not, and we cannot, read according to quan- 
tity ; nor do those peculiarities of pronunciation which some 
affect, as can-o for ca-no, nov-us for no-vus, bring them in the 
least nearer the object. It is not the perception of quantity 
that constitutes the pleasure we feel in reading Latin or Greek 
verse, but the accidental rhythmus arising from our own ac- 
cent. See, on this subject, Mitford's Harmony of Language, 
second edition, sect. 12. The reader may also find some re- 
marks on the same subject in a note, at page 349, of my Prac- 
tical Grammar of English Pronunciation. I beg, however, that 
he will be so kind as to correct one or two errors which, 
through inadvertency, have crept into that note : at the bottom 
of the page (349) the word spondee is twice used for iambus, 
in quoting from Sheridan's Lectures; in page 353, euro is 
printed for furo, and two pages further ^wojuevow for x 000 ^ ^- 
I have also to mention a little change of opinion respecting our 
English accent. That accent of tone and of stress go together, 
was my opinion then, as now, but I thought stress was princi- 
pally necessary : I am now convinced of the contrary. 



OF ENGLISH VERSE. 63 

syllable at the beginning, or adding one at the 
end, and in departing more or less from that re- 
gularity of accentuation which is taken as the 
standard, and which, however it may occasionally 
give way, still predominates. The reader may 
satisfy himself of the truth of this account by 
merely inspecting the examples furnished in 
any English Prosody ; still remembering that it 
is not the feet in any single line that determines 
the character of the rhythmus, but the predomi- 
nant movement of the whole stanza. Now the 
different lengths of the lines, and the different 
ways of beginning and ending them, are obvious 
varieties, and it therefore only remains to explain 
under what limitations the poet, and conse- 
quently the reader, is allowed to deviate from 
that regularity of accentuation which is the foun- 
dation of the rhythmus. First, then, for our ten 
syllable verse* with the dissyllabic movement, 

* Ten syllables are the standard, but for the sake of variety 
and peculiar expression, an additional syllable is occasionally 
permitted, exclusive of the double ending. Yet, of many lines 
given as instances of superabundant syllables, it is doubtful 
whether the ear really perceives the excess. 

And the shrill sounds ran echoing through the woods 

O'er many a frozen, many a fiery alp 

And many an amorous, many a humourous lay, 
Which many a bard had chaunted many a day. 

When two unaccented vowels meet, as in these instances, 
the ear counts them for one or for two syllables, just as the 



64 MECHANICAL STRUCTURE 

which kind of verse is by far the most common, 
and suffers greater liberties with its accentuation 
than any other. The limitations to variety of 
accent in this verse are as follows : 

There must be an accent to mark the end of 
the lines, and, consequently, that on the tenth 
syllable can never be removed without reducing 
the line to prose. 

metre requires. And with regard to the unaccented syllable 
ur, (which is variously spelled ar, er, ir, or, wr,« our,) its exist- 
ence, as a syllable, is frequently doubtful : higher, for instance, 
which is spelled in two syllables, rhymes with fire, spelled as 
one ; and both words may be found, in poetry, sometimes oc- 
cupying the place of one, sometimes of two syllables. How- 
ever, in the following lines from Milton, to which innumerable 
others might be added, from poets of the present day, there 
are eleven distinct syllables : 

All her original brightness, nor appeared 

Ominous conjecture on the whole success 

A pillar of state : deep on his front engraven 

Some capital city, or less than if this frame 

These are deviations from the standard number of syllables, 
but their comparatively unfrequent occurrence is a proof that 
the standard exists. 



OF ENGLISH VERSE. 65 

EXAMPLE I. 

Which of us who beholds the bright surface 

Of this ethereous mould par. lost, vi. 472. 

Beyond all past example and future. 

par. lost, x. 840. 

Here we must adopt the accentuation marked, 
though contrary to all good modern usage*. 

Lines in dramatic poetry often have eleven 
syllables, but the last is only a kind of rebound 
to the preceding accent, and forms, with it, what 
is properly called a double ending. 

EXAMPLE II. 

The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before-ms, 
But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon-it. 

ADDISON. 

The next essential accent in this kind of verse 
is that on the sixth syllable : 

EXAMPLE III. 

Angels held their residence, 



And sat as princes, whom the supreme King 
Exalted, &c. par. lost, i. 735. 

who shall with us extol 

Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake 

And when, &c. par. lost, iv. 734. 



• In the line, which of us, Sfc. the proper accent is an upward 
slide, because the sense is dependent on what follows : in the 
other, the sense is not so dependent, and the accent is a down- 
ward slide. The unaccented syllables should have as much 
stress as the accented, in order not to shock the ear too much 
with the unusual accentuation : to signify this stress, the 
preparatory sliding of the voice ha9 the mark of accent. 

F 



66 MECHANICAL STRUCTURE 

Here, in order to support the former line, we 
must accent whom, and, to support the latter, we 
must accent both, though in prose neither of the 
words, as they are circumstanced, would decid- 
edly claim an accent. Or, if the accent is neg- 
lected on the sixth syllable, it is still possible to 
support each of these verses by accenting the 
fourth and eighth. The fourth, indeed, in both 
of them must, in any case, have an accent. 

And sat as princes, whom the supreme King 

Thy goodness »zfinite, both when we wake 



Hence the accents on the fourth and eighth 
syllables, when the sixth will not bear an accent, 
are essential to the support of a line. 

Irreconcf/eable to our grand fee, 
Who now, &c. 

par. lost,, u 122. 

EXAMPLE V. 

the tree, 

Which tasted work* knowledge of good and evil. 

ibid. vii. 543. 

The necessity of these accents is evident on 
this simple principle : — the natural division of an 
heroic line is at the sixth syllable; the accent at 
that place is therefore the chief accent; it is in 
the middle, and is the great stay or support of 
the line: take away that support, and you can 



OF ENGLISH VERSE. 67 

supply it only by two others at equal distances 
from it toward each end. — Such are the limita- 
tions to variety of accent in our English heroic 
verse; and these are all of them; for as to the 
other syllables, it is at the poet's option to omit 
or impose an accent on any one he pleases. 
Not, indeed, that every line will be equally har- 
monious, however accented in other respects, 
but, harmonious or not harmonious, it will be a 
verse: without the accents mentioned, it will be 
absolute prose. These, therefore, may be called 
the essential accents of an epic line*: it is by 

* For the discovery of these accents, (a discovery it certainly 
is,) I am indebted to Mr. John Maury, a Spaniard, who, during 
the short time he was in this country, did me the honour to 
receive instruction from me. I had always felt there was 
something in blank verse which distinguished it from nume- 
rous prose, but never penetrated the reason, till my friend's 
indication opened my eyes to it at once. And now, in reading 
for a second time the sixth section of Mitford's Harmony of 
Language, I cannot help regretting that so acute and elegant a 
writer should be groping for a principle of which he is evi- 
dently in want throughout the section — a principle which 
(when explained) is so simple and obvious. 

It is to be observed, that, in lines of a superabundant num- 
ber of syllables, as those in the note, page 64, the fifth and the 
seventh syllables count instead of the fourth and the sixth. 

The remark may perhaps be worth making, that lines of the 
two different constructions alternately, have something of the 
effect of the Latin hexameter and pentameter. 

Where shall we find the man that bears affliction, 
Great and ma/Vstic in his griefs, like Cato? 

F 2 



68 MECHANICAL STRUCTURE 

these that blank verse is distinguished from nu- 
merous prose ; it is by these, when the sense of 
one line runs into that of another, we are enabled 
to know when the one ends and the other be- 
gins, and not by any pause at the end of the 
lines, which, if not required on any other ac- 
count, is unnecessary and useless. And as each 
verse depends on these accents for its existence 
as an heroic verse, whatever remains is inci- 
dental, and renders it grave or familiar, or 
smooth or harsh, without essentially changing it. 
Lines which have accents at all the even sylla- 
bles, as they exhibit the verse in its standard 
form, are, individually, the most harmonious, 
though the harmony is scarcely diminished when 
the accent is on the first, instead of the second 
syllable. Lines having more than the regular 
number of accents, are slow and heavy; and the 
fewer the accents, the more nearly the lines ap- 
proach the ease of conversation*. There will, 
besides, be a variety in respect to the pauses of 

* Hence, in dramatic poetry, where the ready flow of con- 
versation is imitated, a constructive accent may sometimes be 
neglected; as, 

Untaught, uncultivated as you were. 

PHILIPS. 

If this occurred in an epic poem, the particle as ought to be 
accented, as being the eighth syllable, and no accent at the 
sixth. 



OF ENGLISH VERSE. 69 

different lines : speaking of them individually, 
those lines are the most harmonious in which the 
sense permits a pause, or, as it is technically 
called, a ccesura, to be immediately after the 
constructive accent in the sixth place, or failing 
there, after that in the fourth. But whether the 
sense allows us to pause at one, or both, or nei- 
ther of these, or whether we are obliged to pause 
after the unaccented syllable following the con- 
structive accent, as after disobedience, in the first 
line of the Paradise Lost, the lines will pass for 
verse, and will conduce, by these varieties, to the 
harmony of the whole. — The general rule, then, 
when an epic line is deficient in construction, 
is, to pronounce the sixth and last syllables with 
accent — if not the sixth, the fourth and eighth ; 
if the sense will at all permit, to make a momen- 
tary pause after these accents, and to avoid, if 
possible, laying a strong accent on the syllables 
immediately preceding; and that method of read- 
ing which accomplishes these points with the 
least deviation from the manner in which the 
line would be read if it occurred in prose, will 
be the best way in which it can be read as 
verse. 

Ten syllable verse in the dissyllabic move- 
ment being thus explained, the remaining varie- 
ties in this movement may be dispatched in a 
few words. In all kinds there must be a con- 



70 MECHANICAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH VERSE. 

eluding accent; but this, as the kind already 
mentioned, may be followed by an additional 
syllable, to form a double ending. In eight syl- 
lable verse the constructive accent is on the 
fourth syllable, or failing there, on the second 
and sixth ; in six syllable verse it is also on the 
fourth, or failing there, on the second, which, 
with the last, will be a sufficient support to the 
verse* 

EXAMPLE VI. 

Far in the windings of a vale, 
Fast by a sheltering wood, 
The safe, &c. 

MALLET. 

A refuge to the neighbouring poor 
And strangers led astray. 

GOLDSMITH. 

The merchant robbed of pleasure, 

Views tempests with despair; 
But what's the loss of treasure 

To losing of my dear ? 

GAY. 

In eight syllable verse the initial syllable is 
sometimes omitted. 

EXAMPLE VII. 

Sometimes walking not unseen, 
By hedge- row elms on hillock green, 
Right against the eastern gate, 
Where the great sun begins his state. 

MILTON. 



RHYTI1MUS OF BALLAD TOETRY. 71 

When this is continued without the intermix- 
ture of perfect lines, it goes, in the language of 
grammarians, by the name of Trochaic verse. 

We come next to verse in the trisyllabic 
movement, of which the following are speci- 
mens: 

EXAMPLE VIII. 

Three feet. 

ye woods spread your branches apace, 
To your deepest recesses I fly, 

1 would hide with the beasts of the chase, 

I would vanish from every eye. 

SHENSTONE. 

Four feet. 
May I govern my passions with absolute sxoay y 
And grow u>/ser and better as life wears away. 

DR. POPE. 

The licences permitted to lines of this move- 
ment are but few: the double-ending is allowed 
as in dissyllabic verse; a syllable, and even two, 
may be omitted at the beginning, and in the 
middle after a pause, though, except at the be- 
ginning, the liberty is but rarely taken. 



11. RHYTHMUS OF BALLAD POETRY. 

In reading ballads and ballad poetry, a 
more palpable time-keeping is necessary than in 
other composition. The vulgar ear seems to 



72 RHYTHMUS OF BALLAD POETRY. 

require a tune in pronouncing it, and there was a 
time when this tune was in favour with the 
polite. A taste for ballad metres is at present 
very prevalent, and the reader of it must always 
judge for himself to what degree the preposses- 
sions of his audience expect him to humour the 
structure by the manner of delivery. 



CHAPTER II. 

SIGNIFICANT READING, OR READING PROPERLY 
SO CALLED. 



Mira est natura vocis, cujus quidem e tribus omnino sonis 
inflexo, acuto, gravi, tanta sit, et lam suavis varietas per- 
fecta 



CICERO. 



1. FALSE HABITS OF READING. 

Mr. Sheridan, in one of his lectures, states it 
as a remarkable circumstance, that if a person 
who had been speaking in earnest conversation, 
were given the same words to read, by one who 
had secretly taken them down in writing, his 
manner, from being spirited and significant, 
would be dry and lifeless ; a decisive proof, he 
thinks, of a false habit in reading. But the 
change, in so far as it consisted in dropping the 
signs of emotion or of earnest feeling, would be 
perfectly natural: the person pronounces in a 
new capacity, and his change of manner indi- 
cates the change in the state of mind which it 
produces. If, indeed, with the signs of emotion 
or earnest feeling, he also dropped or confounded 
the accents which marked the sense, we should 



74 FALSE HABITS OF READING. 

be justified in drawing Mr. Sheridan's conclusion. 
For there is this difference between the former 
class of signs and the latter: — the signs of emo- 
tion and passion which indicate the state of the 
mind in speaking, belong to the language of 
nature, and it is only to feel the state of mind to 
use them properly; but the accents of the voice, 
as they are employed to indicate and enforce the 
sense, belong to, and are a part of, the instituted 
language of art: they borrow their significance 
from custom and tacit agreement; and if a per- 
son's manner of using them agrees with custom 
when he speaks, but departs from it when he 
reads, we justly call his manner of reading 
false*. 

From these remarks we may infer, that the 
common opinion is right, which considers the 
kind of reading that adapts itself to the senti- 
ment and the supposed occasion, as an orna- 
mental art, depending, like other ornamental 
arts, on the culture of the imagination. In the 
case of a person pronouncing his own composi- 

* In different nations and provinces we find great diversity 
in the manner of uttering and applying the accents, which is 
what we have in view when we speak of a national or a pro- 
vincial accent. A Scotch or Irishman does not, in speaking, 
inflect his voice like a Londoner: — if, in reading, he inflects 
his voice in the same way, his manner is still provincial, but 
not false. 



FALSE HABITS OF READING. 75 

tion, he must lose sight of his office, and recal 
the original occasion, before he can catch the 
spirit of a speaker; an effort of imagination 
which becomes more difficult when the compo- 
sition is not his own, nor the occasion familiar. 
And it is in this light— as an art of accomplish- 
ment, that Heading is generally regarded, when 
the master of Elocution is called in to teach it. 
Mere significant Reading, on the other hand, is 
considered as a common acquirement, within the 
reach of every one who will be at the pains of 
understanding the sense of what he reads. It is 
certain, however, that very few are competent 
even to this kind of reading: almost every one 
that attempts to pronounce written composition, 
falls into some set peculiar manner that never 
varies with the sense and construction of sen- 
tences, but is always the same. The reason of 
this may perhaps partly be, that the structure of 
written, is more artificial than of oral discourse : 
greater artifice in the construction requires 
greater artifice in the manner of reading ; the 
inflections must be so managed as to give the 
most agreeable harmony, without any violation 
of the principles by which they are secretly regu- 
lated in common discourse ; the accomplishing 
of these points is somewhat difficult, and the 
reader who is sensible that some artifice is ncces- 



76 FALSE HABITS OF READING. 

sary, yet fails in the manner of it, easily drops 
into the faulty practice alluded to. Still, how- 
ever, the art of reading long and unusual sen- 
tences with propriety of inflection, is not so 
difficult but that the learner would of himself 
grow into it, if an inveterate habit of reading 
mechanically did not stand in his way. The 
origin and growth of such a habit may be thus 
traced: — When we first learn to read as chil- 
dren, we learn mechanically: it cannot be other- 
wise; because a child is unable to follow, with 
sufficient rapidity, a connected succession of 
words, so as to take in the sense of a whole sen- 
tence. On our first entrance upon the art, a 
mechanical tone or manner is therefore neces- 
sarily employed, which infallibly grows into a 
habit, unless particular care is afterwards taken 
to remove it. That a child should get rid of it 
by self-impulse is extremely unlikely; because 
the ability to comprehend whole sentences at a 
glance, (an ability absolutely necessary before a 
person can read with propriety,) is acquired only 
by degrees, during which time the habit is daily 
gaining strength, so that at last he cannot help 
falling into it, whenever he takes a book in hand, 
whether the sense is comprehended or not. Nor 
is it likely to receive a check from those teach- 
ers, who having from their youth been accus- 



FALSE HABITS OF READING. 77 

tomed to the practice, are not aware even of its 
existence in their pupils*. The consequence, 

* Let any one enter our best schools, and listen to the man- 
ner in which the lessons are read and repeated — he will have 
abundant illustration of these remarks. The mechanical tones 
save the learner some trouble : — were he obliged to read ac- 
cording to the meaning, he must make himself acquainted 
with it; as the matter stands, and so long as no questions are 
put to him, he can either attend to it or not, as he pleases. 
Will it be invidious to ask, whether the teacher may not also 
find some convenience in allowing a defective manner of read- 
ing ? He is not obliged to know that any parts of the lesson 
are above the pupil's comprehension, and require explanation, 
or that bis mind is wandering from what he is able to compre- 
hend. Besides, the teacher must of necessity allow of the me- 
chanical manner in some cases, and it will often be difficult to 
draw a line between them and others. A child just entered on 
the study of Latin, repeats the words Propria quce maribus tri- 
bumitur mascula dicas, as so many dead sounds ; nor can he do 
otherwise; for his mind has not yet formed any kind of con- 
nexion with them. May there not be general propositions ex- 
pressed in general terms that impose the same necessity even in 
his own language? Take at random any of the definitions in some 
of the grammars intended for very young children — the defini- 
tion of nouns common, for instance : " Common names stand 
for kinds containing many sorts, or for sorts containing many 
individuals under them." A child may undoubtedly learn to 
distinguish a noun common from a noun proper, by being 
made to compare particular instances of each, and thus by the 
gradual advance of the mind, ascending from particulars to 
universals, (the way in which nature teaches the mind to ad- 
vance,) he may come to the general proposition here quoted ; 
but till he himself has arrived at the truth so enounced, is not 
the sentence enouncing it " all Greek to him?" Those chil- 



78 FALSE HABITS OF READING. 

therefore, under the present state of circum- 
stances, seems inevitable, and the master of Elo- 
cution has not only to teach what is with good 
reason considered to belong to his peculiar de- 
partment, but the art of reading significantly 
becomes, chiefly through the prevalence of these 
bad habits, one main object for which his tuition 
is required. 

These remarks are intended to point out the 
importance of the instruction contained in this 
division of the work. In pursuing the subject, 

dren generally best learn the elementary branches of educa- 
tion, who are taught by intelligent women out of the numerous 
little books which have been contrived by authors of that sex 
in a style and on a plan adapted to children; and such chil- 
dren almost universally read with a spirit and significance that 
would put an overgrown school-boy to the blush. Yet in ap- 
parent disdain of such helps it is gravely said that, " it is bet- 
ter to lead children forward and improve their language by 
proper examples, than to exhibit such as will confirm them in 
a feeble and puerile mode of expression." Undoubtedly; but 
the proper means of doing this is the question: and of the two 
extremes, which is the more dangerous — that which keeps the 
knowledge of words, always in advance of the knowledge of 
things; that which generates a habit — a habit which is but too 
frequently never conquered — of taking the sense for granted 
when the forms of expression are familiar; that which, filling 
the head with the terms, phrases, and idioms of books, begets 
an opinion of substantial improvement; — Or that which never 
suffers a child to deal with language above the reach of his 
powers of comprehension and conversation — with language that 
he cannot assist, by his own significant manner of delivery? 

5 



SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 79 

it will be necessary to consider sentences, first as 
having a plain or direct meaning ; and secondly, 
as having an oblique or referential meaning. 
The remarks in the following sections, as far as 
the end of Section 4th, refer to sentences of 
the former kind. 



wtttnct* Jjabmrr a plain ffltmxin& 



2. SUSPENSIVE, CONCLUSIVE, CONJUNCTIVE, DIS- 
JUNCTIVE, AND HARMONIC INFLECTIONS ; AND 
CONTINUATIVE TONE. 

It has been seen in the introductory essay, 
that the expressing of a single recognition or 
sentiment by several words is, at first, the effect 
of necessity; for language not having a word 
proper for the occasion, is obliged to form an 
expression equivalent to such a word out of a 
number of artificial signs. But that which was 
at first a necessity, became a convenience; for 
the form* of a sentence being thus established^ 

* The forms of sentences are arbitrary, most of them being* 
convertible into each other, without any alteration of meaning. 
And there are some forms into which all sentences might be 
reduced. Suppose one of these, and that the deviations from 
it are merely for the sake of convenience and variety, not 
necessity — that form is here meant. 



SO SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 

we can employ the same form to express a re- 
cognition arising from one or more that have 
preceded it, and thus give the force and com- 
pactness of a single thought, to what could not 
otherwise have been conveyed but as two or 
three. Thus, instead of saying in three sen- 
tences, 

EXAMPLE I. 

The sun rose this morning in the east. It is now declining 
in the west. It will appear again to-morrow morning with 
renewed splendour. 

we can say in a single sentence : 

EXAMPLE II. 

The sun which rose this morning in the east, and which is 
now declining in the west, will appear again to-morrow morn- 
ing with renewed splendour. 

And by this means, the train of thought which 
brought the whole together, is much better sig- 
nified. But there must be limits to the length 
and complexity of a sentence ; it must clearly 
discover all its parts, and their relation to each 
other, or its intention, as a sentence, cannot be 
perceived. Hence, when premises and their 
conclusion stretch out to any length, it would be 
vain or impossible to comprehend them in a 
single sentence — we must exhibit them in shorter 
parts or sentences, in the same manner as the 



SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 81 

thought in the latter of the foregoing examples 
is exhibited in three sentences in the former. 
Still, however, the train which connects the 
whole together in the speaker's mind is the 
same, and it is desirable that that connexion 
should be in some way signified. Language 
accordingly has its contrivances for this purpose, 
and the three sentences in the former example 
may be connected thus : 



EXAMPLE III. 



The sun rose this morning in the east, and is now declining 
in the west; but it will appear again to-morrow morning with 
renewed splendour. 

When several sentences are thus united, they 
are generally esteemed a single sentence, and 
pointed as such. But sentences of this kind 
must not be confounded with those that are 
properly called sentences ; for it is possible 
that an intended meaning cannot be conveyed 
but by such a difference of pronunciation as 
distinguishes the complete dependence of the 
several members in one case, from their inde- 
pendence (in regard to construction) in the other. 
The following is an instance : 

EXAMPLE IV. 

All gaming should be avoided, which tends to give a feverish 
stimulus to the mind. 



82 SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 



EXAMPLE V. 



All gaming should be avoided, which tends to give a fever- 
ish stimulus to the mind. 

This sentence has the fault of being liable to 
two meanings: for the sense may be, All gaming 
of that kind which tends to give a feverish stimulus 
to the mind should be avoided; or, All gaming 
should be avoided ; for all gaming tends to give a 
feverish stimulus to the mind*. The intended 
meaning cannot therefore be signified but by 
such a mode of pronouncing as shall clearly shew 
it to be meant for a single proposition in one case, 
and two propositions in the other. Supposing 
the first to be the meaning, we shall use an up- 
ward accent or inflection at the word avoided, 
which may be called, in this place, a suspensive 
inflection, since its object is, to shew that the 
construction of the sentence is yet undetermined, 
and that something is to be added in order to 
complete it; while the inflection at the end, 
which is a downward slide, may be called con- 
clusive. Supposing the other meaning to be 

* The latter is, in reality, two sentences. They are, never- 
theless, parts of the same train of thought, and might be ex- 
pressed in a single sentence, thus: As all gaming tends to give 
a feverish stimulus to the mind, it should be avoided. It is 
therefore only in regard to construction , that the two sentences 
are said to be independent. 



SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 83 

intended, we shall use a downward inflection at 
the word avoided, which, in this place, had better 
be called disjunctive than conclusive. 

Thus, at first view, it would appear that the 
upward inflection is proper to terminate the 
member of a sentence while the construction 
remains imperfect, and the downward is proper 
to be used at the end of the sentence itself, and 
at the end of every member of what is less pro- 
perly called a sentence, when that member is in* 
dependent, in point of construction, of the next. 
But this, though not incorrect as a general rule,is 
liable to very numerous modifications; for it must 
be remembered there are but two radical accents 
of the speaking voice*, and hence the necessity 
of applying them to various purposes beside 
those which are here mentioned. Propositions 
following each other as parts of the same train of 
thought, are not always liable to be confounded 
as in the last example; and the upward slide 
may generally be employed, without any risk, as 
one of the means by which we mark their con- 
nection with each other. Thus, in Example in. 
the upward inflection should be used at the word 
east, in order to join the two propositions ex. 
pressing the premises more closely together : but 

* The acute and the grave ; for the inflex accent is com- 
pounded of those two. The force of this last accent in our 
language, is to be mentioned hereafter. 

G 2 



84 SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 

the general rule will operate with advantage in 
keeping the last proposition separate from the 
others, which will be done by a disjunctive in- 
flection on the word west. There is yet greater 
necessity for the upward inflection in Example 
i., on account of the absence of every other 
means to mark the connexion of the sentences 
as parts of the same train of thought; nor will it 
be at all improper to use the upward inflection 
at the end of both propositions, namely, at east 
and at west; at the latter word, however, in a 
lower key than at the other. When the upward 
inflection is used for the purposes here pointed 
out, it may very properly be called conjunc- 
tive*. With regard to Example n. 5 which is 

* It will easily be seen, from the foregoing account, that the 
use of the conjunctive or of the disjunctive inflection must fre- 
quently be optional. In reading the following portion of the 
Lord's Prayer, for instance : " Give us this day our daily 
bread ; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that 
trespass against us ; and lead us not into temptation, but de- 
liver us from evil." As each of the members here divided by 
semicolons contains an independent member of the whole sen- 
tence, the passage cannot be said to be incorrectly pronounced, 
if each is terminated by the disjunctive inflection. But the 
conjunctive inflection at those places will by no means give a 
wrong meaning : on the contrary, it will signify, what is pre- 
sumed to be the «ase, that the speaker, in beginning the pas- 
sage, has a prospective view to the whole series of petitions 
contained in it; and though he might have this view, and still 
use the disjunctive inflection, yet it would not be signified that 



SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 85 

completely periodic, a suspensive inflection must 
be used at the word west, for it is there the sen- 
tence divides into its two principal dependent 
parts; and a conclusive inflection will of course 
be employed at the end. These two being the 
chief or significant slides of the whole sentence, 
the remainder will be significant in proportion 
as they subserve to, and prepare for them, in the 
same manner as the secondary accents prepare 
for the principal in a single independent word : 
(See Chap. I. Sec. 8. Ex. i. page 55,) and hence 
the remaining inflections may take the name of 
harmonic or preparatory. — Therefore, instead 
of pronouncing east with an upward inflection, 
according to the general rule, because the con- 
struction is imperfect, it will be better, in this 
place, to employ a downward slide, which, as it 
cannot be mistaken for a disjunctive inflection, 
since the sense is manifestly unformed, will im- 

he had. For my own part, I should choose the latter mode of 
reading, not only for the reason assigned, but also because the 
whole passage is kept distinct from the portion of the prayer 
which precedes, and the portion which follows it — a threefold 
division which will be found perfectly agreeable to the tenor 
of the prayer. As to the first portion, I should choose to ter- 
minate the members thus : " Our Father, which art in heaven, 
hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done 
in earth, as it is in heaven. " I wish to be understood as 
merely giving my own mode, not as questioning the propriety 
of a different one. 



86 SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 

mediately be felt by the ear as a preparation for 
the suspensive slide at the end of the next mem- 
ber: and if there is a similar preparation through- 
out, the sentence will reach the ear and the 
understanding as one compact whole, w 7 hile a 
different manner of pronouncing would seem to 
break it into desultory phrases, connected by 
conjunctive inflections. 

In proportion to the length and complexity of 
sentences, the necessity increases of regulating 
the harmonic inflections in subserviency to each 
other, and all of them to the suspensive and con- 
clusive slides ; so that the ear shall constantly 
perceive the nature of the member to be con- 
cluded, and of that which is to follow, by the 
tune that pervades, and the preparation that ends 
it. Difficult as this process may seem in de- 
scription, a reader, uncorrupted by false habits, 
falls into it with the greatest ease, guided by 
nothing but his ear, and a clear prospective in- 
sight into the sentence. Without this insight 
he would begin with the wrong slides ; but, dis- 
covering his error, he would feel the necessity of 
returning to the commencement, and adopting 
slides probably the very reverse of those he em- 
ployed at first. Of this remark, take an easy 
example : 

EXAMPLE VI. 

Exercise and temperance strengthen the constitution, and 
sweeten the enjoyments of life. 



SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 87 

If a reader had begun this sentence with an 
idea that it terminated at constitution, and were 
afterwards to discover the propriety of using a 
conjunctive instead of a conclusive inflection at 
that word, he would feel that a different prepa- 
ration was necessary, and would begin the sen- 
tence again with slides the contrary of those at 
first employed; and thus do we instinctively 
harmonize the secondary accents of a sentence 
with the principal and more significant. A mi- 
nute account of them in any sentence would 
include all the slides it contained — an account 
which would, unfortunately, be liable to these 
objections ; that the arrangement of them is 
seldom so fixed and determinate that good 
speakers, in pronouncing the same sentence, if 
it be of any length, do not vary from each other ; 
and that the best reader, if he had formed him» 
self only by his ear, would be unable to recog- 
nise his own practice in a written description. 
With regard, indeed, to certain parts of sen- 
tences, the inflections, to an unpractised ear, 
are imperceptible; and the best way of indicat- 
ing the proper pronunciation, will be to say, 
that the tone should be continuative. Thus the 
following sentence should be pronounced with 
a continuative tone from the commencement, 
till the arrival of a proper place for the more 
manifest preparation for the suspensive slide; 



88 SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 

EXAMPLE VII. 

As we perceive the shadow to have moved along the diat, 
but did not perceive it moving; and it appears that the 
grass has grown though nobody ever saw it grow: so the ad- 
vances we make in knowledge, as they consist of such minute 
steps, are only perceivable by the distance. 

The preparation for the suspensive slide should 
be made at the words has grown, and all that 
precedes must be uttered in an apparent mono- 
tone, carefully guarded from any marked inflec- 
tion, either upward or downward, in making the 
pauses. After the suspensive slide at saw-it- 
grow, there should be an harmonic alternation 
of inflections gradually falling in key as the sen- 
tence draws to an end. This gradual fall may 
obscure the nature of some of the slides, particu- 
larly that on the word steps, which ends the 
penultimate, or last member but one, and which 
must be an upward inflection, because it is op- 
posed to the conclusive slide. Yet, though the 
reader may be unable to recognise its real cha- 
racter, the ear is perfectly sensible of the effect 
produced by it, and requires that it also should 
have its preparatory inflection — that is to say, a 
downward slide at the word knowledge, which 
ends the antepenultimate member. As a clearer 
proof that the ear desires an upward inflection 
at the end of the penultimate member, the foU 
lowing example may be given : 



SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 



89 



EXAMPLE VII! 



The persuasion of the truth of the Gospel, without the evidence 
which accompanies it, would not have been so firm and so durable; 
it would not have acquired new force with age ; it would not have 
resisted the torrent of time ; nor have passed from age to age to our 
own days. 

Here the disjunctive inflection is employed at the 
end of every independent member except the last but 
one, where, for the sake of the harmonic preparation 
for the cadence, it gives place to the conjunctive. A 
shorter example, to the same purport, may be exhi- 
bited on musical lines : 



EXAMPLE IX. 




In this example the word Jew takes an upward in- 
flection as an harmonic preparation for the conclusive 
on none: all might be pronounced either with a 
conjunctive or disjunctive slide; but the disjunctive, 
as being the opposite inflection to that onjezv, will 
best please the ear: and with regard to the other 
slides, they must necessarily be the reverse of the 
principal; therefore if the musical lines had not been 
used, the principal alone would have been noted; 
thus : " Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." — 
The most common arrangement into which the har- 



90 6ENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING, 

monic inflections fall, consists of pairs, each pair 
being the reverse of the other, thus : 



or thus 



\x/\ 



the former two pairs are first on the musical lines, and 
both varieties occur in forming the cadence of the 
following sentence: 

EXAMPLE X. 

The immortality of the soul is the basis of morality, and the source 
of all the pleasing hopes and secret joys that can 

arise in the heart of a reasonable creature*. 

Hence, if a sentence contains an enumeration of any 
four objects in single words, the most agreeable way 
in which the four words can be pronounced, will be 
in similar reversed pairst. 

* The breaks in this, and some of the following examples, are 
merely occasioned by placing the words with contrary accents un- 
derneath each other. 

f A series of single words extending to whatever length, may, 
however, always be grammatically pronounced with a succession of 
upward or downward inflections although the pronunciation will not 
be so agreeable as when the slides are varied harmonically. The suc- 
cession of upward inflections will take place in a cursory manner of 
reading; the succession of downward, when distinctness is aimed at. 
Thus in pronouncing the words one, tivo, three, four, &c. in count- 
ing a number of things, if our object is rather to arrive at the gross 
sum, than to dwell distinctly on the particulars, we utter each word 
with a conjunctive inflection : if the contrary be our object, we use 

the disjunctive. The upward inflection, when suspensive, as at 

mtleors, Ex. xi. and the downward when conclusive, as at meteors, 
Ex. xn. are, of course, not included in this remark. — When a series 
of single words occurs in verse, the harmonic accents should prepare 
for, and unite with, the constructive. 



SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 91 
EXAMPLE XI. 

Metals, minerals, p'dnts, and meteors 
contain a thousand curious properties to engage the attention. 

EXAMPLE XII. 

The attention is engaged by the curious properties of 
metals, minerals, plants, and meteors. 

But the construction of a sentence does not 
always admit of the arrangement in pairs, and 
the inflections will probably then run into trip- 
lets, which will be in some of the following 
forms: 



J V or thus: 




The last three inflections on the musical lines 
are a specimen of the last of these triplets. Some 
further examples will be necessary : 



EXAMPLE XI! I. 



We may compare human life 
to a tale told by an idiot. 



or, 

EXAMPLE XIV. 



We may compare human life 
to a tale told by an idiot. 



92 SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 

An enumeration of any three objects in single 
words, will be read according to the same pat- 
terns: 

EXAMPLE XV. 

Manufactures, trade, and agriculture 
employ more than nineteen parts of the species in twenty. 

or, 

EXAMPLE XVI. 

Manufactures, trade, and agriculture, employ, &c. 

EXAMPLE XVII. 

More than nineteen parts of the species in twenty are em- 
ployed in 

manufactures, trade, and agriculture. 

or, 

EXAMPLE XVIII. 

More than nineteen parts of the species in twenty are em- 
ployed in 

manufactures, trade, and agriculture. 

The inflections of Example vi. page 86, consist 
of two pairs and a triplet : e.g. " exercise and 
temperance, strengthen the constitution, and 
sweeten the enjoyments of life." Were it to 
terminate at constitution, the inflections would 
be the two pairs reversed : 

EXAMPLE XIX. 

Exercise and temperance sUeugthen the constitution. 



SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 93 

When parts of sentences are opposed to each 
other, the opposite parts will have opposite in- 
flections, and these will fall into harmonic pairs 
or triplets. The following is an example of op- 
posite inflections in pairs : 

EXAMPLE XX. 

The pleasures of the imagination are not so 

gross as those of sense, 

nor so refined as those of the understanding*. 

The next is an example of opposite inflections 
in triplets : 

EXAMPLE XXI. 

He raised a mortal to the skies, 
She drew an angel down. 

If a series of single words extend to any 
length, we best please the ear by dividing it into 
portions; thus the following will harmoniously 
fall into triplets, and the last triplet must be di- 
versified from the others by greater preparation 
for cadence. 

EXAMPLE XXII. 

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, pekce — long-suffering, 
gentleness, goodness — faith, meekness, temperance. 

Had a suspensive instead of a conclusive slide 
been required on the last word, the preparation 



94 SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 

for it would have thrown the inflections of the 
last triplet into the form opposite to that of the 
- others. 

EXAMPLE XXIII. 

Love, joy, peace — long -suffering, gentleness, gooJness— • 
faith, meekness, temperance, are the fruits of the spirit. 

The following enumeration will fall into a tri- 
plet and a pair, or a pair and a triplet. 

EXAMPLE XXIV. 

Patience, meekness, temperance — justice, benevolence, 
should mark the conduct of a christian. 

or, 

EXAMPLE XXV. 

Patience, meekness — temperance, justice, benevolence, 
should mark, &c. 

In a longer series, if any of the portions were 
made to consist only of a pair, such portions 
would not be readily perceived by the ear, and 
the best divisions will be into four and three, or 
three and four, &c. 

EXAMPLE XXVI. 

Piety, cheerfulness, patience, meekness, — temperance, jus- 
tice, benevolence, should mark, &c. 

or, 

EXAMPLE XXVII. 

Piety, cheerfulness, patience, — meekness, temperance, jus- 
tice, beuevolence, should, &c. 



SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 95 

The commencing inflections of the sentence 
in Chap. I. Sec. 8. Ex. n. at page 56, corres- 
pond with those of the former of these two ex- 
amples. — Another example may be given of an 
enumeration, in portions of four and three. 

EXAMPLE XXVIII. 

Mr. Locke's definition of wit comprehends most of the 
species of it ; as, metaphors, enigmas, mottoes parables, — 
fables, di earns, visions, — dramatic writings, burlesque, and 
ail the methods of allusion. 

When a series of particulars occurs, each of 
which is expressed by several words, the same 
principles will not guide the ear as when each 
particular is expressed by a single word ; for, as 
each member will have more inflections than 
one, each will have its own harmony, and will 
be terminated by the inflection which the gram- 
matical construction requires, namely, by a con- 
junctive or a disjunctive inflection, — that is to 
say, by a conjunctive inflection in a cursory 
manner of reading, and by a disjunctive in a dis- 
tinctive manner. (See the note, page 90.) 

EXAMPLE XXIX. 

The descriptive p3rt of the allegory in the second book of 
the Paradise Lost, is very strong, and full of sublime ideas : 
the figure of death, the regal crown upon his head, his menace 

5 



96 SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 

of Satan, his advancing to the combat, the outcry at his birth, 
are very noble circumstances, and extremely suitable to the 
great king of terrors. 

EXAMPLE XXX. 

The descriptive part of the allegory in the second book of 
the Paradise Lost, is very strong, and full of sublime ideas : 
the figure of death, the regal crown upon his head, his menace 
of Satan, his advancing to the combat, the outcry at his birth, 
are very noble circumstances, and extremely suitable to the 
great king of terrors. 

This sentence, from the colon, is completely 
periodic; but the dependence for sense is be- 
tween the great member terminating at birth, 
and the remainder of the sentence ; nor have the 
smaller members which make up the greater, 
any connexion, individually, with the remainder 
of the sentence ; so that the upward inflection, 
if used to terminate each, is conjunctive — not 
suspensive; except at birth, and there the up- 
ward inflection marks the common dependence 
of all that precedes on all that follows. But the 
disjunctive inflection will be found to exhibit the 
particulars with much more distinctness and 
force than the conjunctive. 



SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 97 
3. PAUSES. 

An attention to what is principal, and what is 
subordinate, in the construction of a sentence, 
is, in all cases, of the highest importance towards 
a distinctive pronunciation. For it will be found, 
that long sentences are seldom immediately divi- 
sible into single words, but into large members 
or parts, and these again into smaller members, 
and thus downwards; all of which, a good reader, 
without auy other guide than a comprehensive 
view of the sense of the whole, will clearly dis- 
criminate, and will signify the relative and the 
common dependence of the parts by the inflec- 
tions of his voice. A short sentence, like the 
following, suggests its parts at once : 

EXAMPLE I. 

Sin degrades. 

But let it take the following shape : 

EXAMPLE II. 

Sin — degrades the nature of .man. 

'Theprincipal parts are .the. same as before, but 
:the latter .part consists of several words which 
are therefore only parts of a part. Hence, in 
order to keep them separate from the word sin, 

H 



98 SENTENCES HAVING A PJLAIN MEANING. 

which is a part by itself, a slight pause may be 

made after sin may be made, for the sentence 

is not sufficiently complex to render such a pause 
of great necessity. On the same principle, a 
slight pause may be made in the following ex- 
ample, where each part consists of several words : 

EXAMPLE III. 

All sinful practices — degrade the nature of man. 

Let the sentence be somewhat longer, and the 
principal parts will probably be divisible into 
subordinate classes of words : 

EXAMPLE IV. 

A long continuance — in the paths of sin 

may degrade the soul — beyond the reach of redemption. 

The principal parts being now much longer, 
the reader might feel it necessary, for the sake 
of easy or impressive pronunciation, to make 
more than one pause; and on looking at the 
former principal part, it appears to consist of two 
clauses, one of which serves to modify or explain 
the latter: on looking at the latter principal part, 
it also seems equally divisible. The division into 
subordinate parts is still further pursued in the 
following example. 



SENTENCES HAVING A PLAIN MEANING. 99 



EXAMPLE V. 



To employ the best years — of this fleeting existence — in the 

pursuits of folly — and the indulgences of sense 

degrades a man — from his rank in the creation — 
even below the brutes — placed under his command. 

It appears from these, and from examples in 
other places, that the written stops are by no 
means adequate to all the occasions for pausing, 
which the construction of sentences may suggest. 
The use of the written stops, to a good reader, 
is merely to prevent the construction from being 
mistaken ; for having, by their assistance, once 
perceived the construction, he pays no further 
regard to them, but pauses wherever he feels a 
propriety, whether a stop happens to be marked 
in writing or not. 



4. PARENTHESIS. 

To the preceding review of the principles which 
guide a good reader (though probably unknown 
to himself) in his pronunciation of sentences 
having a plain meaning, it remains to be added, 
that when the construction of a sentence is in- 
terrupted by a member which is not an essential 
part of it, the manner of reading should exem- 
h 2 



100 SENTENCES HAVING AN OBLIQUE 

plify the nature of the member interposed, and 
should prevent the connexion between the broken 
parts from being lost sight of: for which pur- 
poses, at the moment of quitting the text, the 
voice sinks into an under tone, and the pronun- 
ciation becomes more rapid, as if hastening to 
regain it ; while the inflection of the voice be- 
tween the broken parts remains the same as if no 
interruption had taken place, and is echoed or 
repeated at the end of the intervening member. 

EXAMPLE. 

If envious people were to ask themselves whether they would 
exchange their entire situations With the persons envied, (I 
mean their minds, passions, notions, as well as their persons, 
fortunes, dignities,) 1 presume the self-love common to human 
nature would generally make them prefer their own condition. 



&mttnm pairing an <®Miqut jSUanins* 



5. EXTRA-SUSPENSIVE, AND EXTRA- CONCLUSIVE IN- 
FLECTIONS, AND PRONOMINAL PRONUNCIATION. 

By the means which have been pointed out, 
the construction of any sentence may be made 
as clear as reading can make it, and, while the 
meaning does not go beyond the terms of the 



OR REFERENTIAL MEANING. 101 

sentence, the conditions of a significant pronun- 
ciation will be thus fulfilled. But nothing is 
more frequent than that a sentence really does 
not express what it is intended to express, if un- 
derstood plainly, according to the actual amount 
of the words composing it, the meaning, in such 
cases, having a reference to something said be- 
fore, or something generally pre-understood, or 
to something implied by the very form of the 
sentence, though not really expressed by the 
terms in it. On such occasions, the more than 
ordinary meaning will be signified by an unusual 
arrangement of the inflections of the voice ; or, 
in other words, the common manner of pro- 
nouncing will give place to an extra manner. If 
the following sentence — I could not treat a dog 
ill— is intended to convey, as a plain piece of in- 
formation, what the words actually express, and 
nothing more, the inflections of the voice will 
fall into the common arrangement of opposite 
pairs, harmonizing with the conclusive slide : 




But if, instead of a plain, we employ this sentence 
with a referential meaning, it will be necessary to 

* The musical lines are omitted, because they may easily 
be supposed. 



102 SENTENCES HAVING AN OBLIQUE 

disturb the harmonic arrangement of the slides ; 
and supposing our object requires that our mean- 
ing, with regard to what is referred to, should be 
left doubtful, the irregular inflection will be an 
upward slide, as in the following example, where 
the upward slide is evidently irregular, because 
it terminates the sentence : 

EXAMPLE I. 




The meaning of the sentence when so pro- 
nounced, will be to this purport : However 1 
might deal with other animals, yet a dog is of that 
nature, that him in 'particular ; I could not treat ill. 
We suppose the reference is to other animals, 
because the irregular slide is on the word dog : 
had it been on some other word, on 2, for in- 
stance, the allusion would have been different. 
The object of the irregular pronunciation is at- 
tained, in cases like the present, by leaving the 
meaning doubtful with regard to what is referred 
to — (that is to say, in this instance, by leaving it 
undetermined whether we could or could not 
treat other animals ill). If the object of the ir- 
regular pronunciation should be to convey a po- 
sitive meaning with regard to what is referred to, 
the irregular inflection will be a downward slide : 



OR REFERENTIAL MEANING. 101 



EXAMPLE II. 




The reference is still to something opposed to 
dog, because the irregular slide is still on that 
word ; but the meaning implied by the allusion 
is now positive ; for the speaker intends to sig- 
nify thus much : I could not treat any creatures 
illy who have higher claims on my kindness, since 
I could not treat even a dog ill*. 

* It is common, in speaking of emphasis, to consider the 
word affected by it as designating the more important idea : in 
the spirit of which supposition I have somewhere read, that, 
V If, in/ every assemblage of objects, some appear more worthy 
of notice than others ; if, in every assemblage of ideas, which 
are pictures of those objects, the same difference prevail, — it 
consequently must follow, that in every assemblage of words, 
which are pictures of these ideas, &c. &c." All this would be 
very well if the mind were a camera oscura, and language the 
showman, proclaiming to those without what was represented 
within ; but till the act of conceiving and expressing a thought 
shall be proved to be a process of this kind, the argument here 
adopted is nothing to the purpose. Words formed into a sen- 
tence, are not significant of the meaning individually, but col- 
lectively, and the effect of any one of them taking an emphasis, 
is a peculiar force given to the meaning of the whole sentence. 
It is a similar case with the closer junction of two words, by 
using one accent instead of two. Thus we should say, the war 
minister, if there were no other ministers of state beside that 
one, but as there are others, we say the ivdr-mini&ter, with a 



104 SENTENCES HAVING AN OBLIQUE 

By not finishing a sentence with the usual con- 
clusive inflection, but breaking off with the sus- 
pensive slide, as in Ex. I. the effect will always 
be, that the speaker leaves some conclusion for 
his hearers to draw, or something for them men- 
tally to supply*. The end in doing this may 

reference to the others. , It cannot be said that minister, which 
drops the accent in the last expression, designates a less im- 
portant idea, for both words designate but one object, and that 
is a minister, — and all the difference is, that the last expression 
includes the relation in which he now stands, and in which he 
was not conceived to stand before. 

* In such cases, it must not be supposed that the speaker 
could, with equal force, express in words what he leaves unsaid. 
Words, after all, would be but feeble interpreters of thought, 
if the hearer did not, in all cases, collect from them much more 
than they actually express. In sentences of the plainest mean- 
ing, there is always something left unsaid, (for instance, some- 
thing to the purport of I perceive, I desire, must be meant in all 
sentences, though not expressed;) butthen,in these cases, what- 
ever is «?isaid, is so obvious from what is said, that there needs 
no other indication to point it out. It is otherwise with such 
cases as are contemplated in the text; for there the speaker's 
meaning is not obvious from what he says, independently of 
the manner in which he says it. The peculiarity of the man- 
ner excites imagination, and his meaning is conceived much 
more strongly than if he had depended on words alone for the 
purpose. Suppose, for instance, instead of the short sentence 
Ex. 1. with the significant inflection, he had said, with a plain 
pronunciation, However I might deal with other animals, I could 
not treat a dog ill. The sentence certainly approaches the 
meaning of the other, but by no means has the same force, and 
therefore it still admits of the significant inflection. 



OR REFERENTIAL MEANING. 105 

not always be the same ; but, in that instance, 
the intention evidently is, that what is stated as 
not being doubtful, may seem particular in being 
contrasted with what is purposely left doubtful. 
When, on the contrary, the regular slides of a 
sentence are interrupted by a conclusive slide 
out of its usual place, as in Ex. II. the effect will 
always be a more than common positiveness, so 
as to leave nothing doubtful, either of what is 
stated, or what is left unstated ; and the end will 
be, to demand attention to one subject in parti- 
cular, by requiring the entire exclusion of what- 
ever may be suggested as opposed to it ; or else 
the intention will be to signify, that as the speak- 
er's meaning is positive with regard to the sub- 
ject mentioned, it is also positive with regard to 
whatever is alluded to, or still more so, in pro- 
portion to the nature of the one as contrasted 
with the other. The former of these extra slides 
may be called the extra-suspensive inflection, 
or the suspensive emphasis: the other maybe 
called the extra-conclusive inflection, or the 
strong emphasis. And it is to be remarked, 
they are seldom simple slides, but are generally 
circumflected ; at least they are always liable to 
be so : that is to say, a little of the opposite slide 
is usually heard before they are carried upward 
or downward*. 

* Thus it appears, the inflex accent, in our language, has 
two varieties. 



106 SENTENCES HAVING AN OBLIQUE 

In both sentences, Ex. I. and Ex. II. the word 
ill loses its accent. By this proceding the 
speaker suggests that the subject to which it re- 
fers must be pre-understood, as a necessary step to 
the particular meaning he has in view. " I am 
speaking of treating ill; 99 (he virtually says,) — 
" that must be pre-understood as the subject of 
my assertion ; but the particular assertion I have 
to make, is, that I could not treat a dog ill. Any 
word, or class of words, which is thus deprived 
of its accent or accents, because the subjects are 
suggested to be pre-understood in the manner 
here explained, or because they have been really 
mentioned before, — any such word, or class of 
words, may be said to be pronounced pronomi- 

NALLY*. 

The several appellations which have been ap- 
plied to the peculiarities of pronunciation ob- 
servable in these instances, will be sufficient for 
all other cases \ as any deviation from the regu- 
lar manner of accenting a sentence, is resolvable 
into similar causes. 

Interrogative sentences frequently terminate 
with an upward inflection ; but this is the sus- 
pensive emphasis ; for questions, of jvhich the 

* Pronominally , because they refer to their subjects in the 
same manner as a pronoun refers to its noun, after the subject 
denoted by the noun has been regularly introduced, and be- 
come an implied topic of the discourse. 



OR REFERENTIAL MEANING. 107 

terms directly correspond with those expected in 
the answer, are pronounced conclusively, like 
other plain sentences. Thus we say, with a con- 
clusive inflection, When are you going to Lon- 
don ? for the reply is expected to contain a term, 
or terms, directly answering to when in the ques- 
tion. So also we say, with a conclusive inflec- 
tion, Are you going to London, or are you not 
going to London? for we presume the answer 
must agree with one or the other of these alter- 
natives. But when a sentence does not prescribe 
the terms of the answer, by terms with which 
those in the answer are expected to correspond, 
the speaker signifies his meaning by the suspen- 
sive emphasis j thus — 

EXAMPLE III. 

You are going to London. 

This sentence is affirmative in form ; but it is 
uttered with a suspensive inflection, which inti- 
mates that the hearer is to confirm it, if right ; to 
deny it, if wrong. Expressing it in the form of 
a question will merely transpose the first two 
words ; — the speaker's intention that the hearer 
shall draw the conclusion, will be the same as 
before \ as, 

• EXAMPLE IV. 

Are you going to London ? * 



Suppose the hearer, who had not properly attended, were 



108 SENTENCES HAVING AN OBLIQUE 

In sentences resembling this, the transposition 
of the words renders the extra-meaning obvious, 
and the suspensive slide would be employed with- 
out hesitation, as the only one proper for the 
purpose. But almost every other kind of sen- 
tence, intended to bear an extra-meaning, is lia- 
ble to be defrauded of its full signification by 
being read with a common arrangement of the 
slides, particularly when long and complex. — 
Thus, for instance, the following sentence : 

EXAMPLE V. 

The spirit of true religion is far removed from that gloomy 
and illiberal superstition which teaches men to fit themselves 
for another world by neglecting the concerns of this. 



to say, "I beg your pardon — what did you ask me?" the 
speaker would answer, with a conclusive slide, as giving the 
plain information desired — "Are you going to London/' — 
On the other hand, a question of which the terms correspond 
with those expected in the answer, will be pronounced suspen- 
sively, if a reference is made to something that has preceded. 
Thus, if the interrogator were obliged to repeat one of the pre- 
ceding questions in the text, because he had not rightly un- 
derstood the answer, he would say, " When are you going to 
London }" — the words after when being pronounced pronotni- 
nalty, embraced by the suspensive accent on that word. The 
question above, What did you ask me, is pronounced suspen- 
sively, for a similar reason ; for were it to be uttered independ- 
ently, without reference to any thing immediately preceding, 
and without inferring that the speaker partly knew what had 
been asked, it would be a plain sentence, and pronounced con- 
clusively; as, * What did you ask me this morning ?" 



OR REFERENTIAL MEANING. 109 

This sentence is not meant for a piece of plain, 
independent information, but bears a reference 
throughout to a contrary opinion which is sup- 
posed to prevail ; and on account of this refer- 
ential signification, it is made to terminate with 
the extra-suspensive slide. 

Hannibal, inciting his soldiers to victory and 
plunder, says — 

EXAMPLE VI. 

You have been long enough employed in driving the cattle 
over the vast mountains of Lusitania and Celtiberia. 

The information amounts to nothing in itself, 
but as a suggestion of something further, it con- 
veys a great deal : accordingly the sentence ter- 
minates with the suspensive slide. The next ex- 
ample terminates in the same manner. 

EXAMPLE VII. 

If we have no regard for our own character, we ought to 
have some regard for the character of others. 

Neither is this sentence intended for informa- 
tion, of which the hearer is not supposed j to be in 
-previous possession \ but it is delivered in the 
manner of a hint, as being a proposition com- 
monly acknowledged, and the inference being 
■left for the hearer to draw, is much more forcible 
than if the speaker had tried to express all Ibis 
meaning in words with a plain pronunciation. 



110 SENTENCES HAVING AN OBLIQUE 

EXAMPLE VIII. 

Satan was the tempter, ere the accuser, of mankind. 

The plain meaning would be an historical 
statement of the facts ; but a suggestion is in- 
tended, that Satan could not have been the ac- 
cuser, if he had not first been the tempter, and 
to make it convey this suggestion, the sentence 
receives the extra-suspensive slide. 

The Angel, prophesying to Adam the pur- 
suits of Nimrod, says that he will be a hunter, 
but adds that 

EXAMXLE IX. 

Men, not beasts, shall be his game. 

A speaker would never express by a negative 
what he had already said affirmatively, as in this 
instance, unless he intended a reference to some 
opposite notion. In the present instance, the 
opposite notion is the common idea of hunting, 
and to make the sentence bear a reference to 
that notion, it receives the extra-suspensive slide. 

The strong emphasis being a downward inflec- 
tion, like the conclusive slide, (though more for- 
cibly marked, and liable to be circumflected,) is 
less perceptible at the end, than when it inter- 
rupts the regular accents in the middle of a sen- 
tence : for instance, — 



OR REFERENTIAL MEANING. 1 I 1 

EXAMPLE X. 

A man of a polite imagination can converse with a picture, 
and find an agreeable companion in a statue. 

This sentence is intended to convey an extra- 
meaning, and, for this end, picture and statue are 
made strongly emphatic ; though, for the reason 
assigned, the emphasis is more perceptible on the 
first than on the other. The allusion is to every 
thing more capable of conversation than a pic- 
ture, or companionable than a statue, and the 
meaning is positive with regard to the objects 
named, that equal or greater positiveness may be 
inferred with regard to those not named. In 
such examples as these, it should be observed 
that the statement is an extreme, and the posi- 
tive meaning is felt to fall with the greater weight 
on the subjects alluded to, in proportion as they 
recede from the extreme. The instance, Ex. II. 
was of the same kind, and so also the following : 

EXAMPLE XI. 

Better to reign in H£ll, than serve in Heaven. 

This might be pronounced with the regular re- 
versed harmonic pairs,\//\ and it would then 
convey the plain meaning. But the speaker may 
intend to signify that excessive love of rule, and 
hatred of servitude, which would lead him in any 

8 



112 SENTENCES HAVING AN OBLIQUE 

case, — since it makes him even in this extreme 
case, — to prefer the one to the other ; a pleni- 
tude of meaning which is conveyed by the 
strong emphasis on hell and heaven. 

In the following example, which is the com- 
mencement of a letter in the Spectator, the strong 
emphasis has not precisely the same intention : 

EXAMPLE XII. 

I have often lamented, and hinted my sorrow, in several spe- 
culations, that the art of Painting is so little made use of to the 
improvement of our manners. 

The intention of the strong emphasis on paint- 
ing, in this instance, is merely to demand the 
.attention of the hearer at the beginning of the 
essay to that subject in particular, by requiring 
the entire exclusion from his mind of all other 
arts, to which, by the emphasis, allusion is made. 
A further meaning might be given to the sen- 
tence, by pronouncing all the words after paint- 
ing pronominally ; for an intimation would thus 
be made to the hearer, that he is supposed to pre- 
understand that the arts alluded to are made use 
of to the improvement of our manners, though 
painting is not. But as there would be an un- 
pleasantness in breaking in so far on the regular 
harmonic pronunciation of a sentence, at the 
ye,ry beginning of the essay, as well as an appear- 
ance of requiring /too mucfi qf.the fearer before 



OR REFERENTIAL MEANING. 113 

he was sufficiently acquainted with the subject, 
a judicious reader would, in this place, deviate 
no further than to place the emphasis on paint- 
ing. 

But the pronominal pronunciation is absolutely 
necessary in such instances as the following : 

EXAMPLE XIII. 

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended* 
Madam, you have my father much offended. 

Here the phrase in italic is pre-understood, be- 
cause it was used in the preceding sentence, and 
you is strongly emphatic, as marking, by refer- 
ence, the speaker's positive meaning with regard 
to himself; — It is not 7, but you who have, fyc. — 
The suspensive emphasis would equally mark his 
meaning with regard to his mother, but as it 
would leave his meaning, with regard to himself, 
in suspense, and would therefore imply that her 
charge against him might possibly be true, the 
expression of the passage would not be so strong. 
Yet in this case, as in the other, the phrase in 
italic would be pronominal, only that, in the lat- 
ter case, the previous slide would carry the tone 
upward. 

EXAMPLE XIV. 

A good man 

will love himself too well to lose an estate by gaming, 

and his neighbour too well to win one. 

I 



3 1 4 SENTENCES HAVING AN OBLIQUE 

EXAMPLE XV. 

A good man 

will love himself too well to lose, 

and his neighbour too well, to win an estate by gaming.. 

In these sentences, there are no extra inflec- 
tions, either suspensive or conclusive, the oppo- 
sition of parts being signified by the regular in- 
flections, as Ex. XX. Sec. 2. p. 93. But in both 
instances, the phrase in italic must be pronounced 
pronominally, so as to intimate that what is de- 
noted by it, is the pre-understood subject, con- 
cerning which the alternative is proposed. In 
the first example, this phrase will be embraced by 
the upward accent of the preceding word, in the 
last example, by the downward accent* 

A pronominal phrase that extends to a consi- 
derable length, will not admit of being embraced 
by a single accent. The whole of the words be- 
tween far and this, in Ex. V. p. 108, are prono- 
minal, inasmuch as they refer to the pre-under- 
stood conception of the subject, which the speak- 
er keeps in mind throughout the sentence. And 
though, from the length of the phrase, it must 
have several accents, yet the continuative tone 
to which they should be reduced, will render 
them nearly imperceptible. A similar remark 
applies to Ex. VI. p. 109. 

As a pronominal phrase (except under the 
circumstances just mentioned) has no accent of 



OR REFERENTIAL MEANING. 115 

its own, but is embraced by the accent of the 
preceding word, it frequently happens that a 
word will have a stronger (that is, a more per- 
ceptible) accent than other words, merely be- 
cause it chances to be the word immediately be- 
fore the pronominal phrase. Some of the sen- 
tences already quoted, illustrate this remark ; 
but it will be proper to add other examples, as 
well for this purpose, as to exemplify further the 
nature of a pronominal phrase. 

EXAMPLE XVI. 

Jonathan loved David as his own soul. And Jonathan made 
a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. 

The phrase in italic must be pronounced pro- 
nominally, the subject being pre-understood, as 
having been mentioned before; hence the word 
because, as its accent embraces this phrase, seems 
to have more force than it would otherwise claim. 

EXAMPLE XVII. 

When the wicked man 

turneth aw ky from his wickedness (hat he hath committed, 

and doeth that which is lawful and right, 

he shall save his soul alive. 

If it be deemed that the subject of the phrase 
in italic is pre-understood, as having been vir- 
tually mentioned before, (namely, by the phrase 

i 2 



116 SENTENCES HAVING AN OBLIQUE 

a wicked man, which means a man that hath com- 
mitted wickedness ; ) and if it be judged proper, 
on this account, to pronounce it pronominally, 
then the word away will have a more remarkable 
accent than the principal words before it, be- 
cause it will seem to embrace that phrase, inas- 
much as the continuative tone in which the 
phrase will be uttered, will render the accents 
till the end of the phrase, nearly imperceptible. 

In some cases, perhaps, when the subjects are 
pre-understood, it may not be eligible to read a 
phrase pronominally, because the harmony of a 
sentence (where harmony is of consequence) 
might suffer too much. But these cases are but 
few \ for, generally speaking, one very great fea- 
ture of significant reading, probably the greatest, 
is the distinguishing of primary information from 
what is pre-understood, and therefore secondary. 
The subjects of discourse, when once introduced, 
go along with the mind continually ; and it be- 
trays inattention to the drift of thought, or inca- 
pacity to follow it, or, at best, a very bad habit 
which prevents the reader from shewing out- 
wardly that he follows it, when he makes no dis- 
tinction between the words and phrases that refer 
to those subjects, and such as bring the hearer 
acquainted with something new. This is a point 
of the utmost importance, and it is astonishing 
that writers on Elocution should never have no- 
ticed it 



OR REFERENTIAL MEANING. 117 

The student must never suppose, that any em- 
phasis on a particular word detaches the meaning 
of that word from the meaning of the whole sen- 
tence. None of the preceding examples or ex- 
planations, if they have been properly under- 
stood, lead to such a conclusion : the suspensive 
emphasis, or the strong emphasis, on a particular 
word, gives a particular meaning to the whole 
sentence ; — by changing the seat of emphasis, 
the meaning is altered, but still it is the sentence, 
so pronounced, that expresses the meaning. — 
The suspensive slide at the end of a sentence 
gives to the whole a particular meaning, as se- 
veral examples have shewn ; and sometimes the 
particular or extra-meaning requires the regular 
or harmonic slides in several parts of the sen- 
tence, to give place to the extra-suspensive or 
extra-conclusive slides. In proof of which, com* 
pare the following sentences ; 

EXAMPLE XVIII. 

He cannot exalt bis thoughts to any thing great or noble, 
who only believes that, after a short turn on the stage of this 
world, he is to sink into oblivion, and to lose his consciousness 
for ever. 

EXAMPLE XIX. 

Can he exalt his thoughts to any thing great or noble, who 
only believes that, after a short turn on the stage of this world, 
he is to sink into oblivion, and to lose his consciousness for 
ever ? 



118 SENTENCES HAVING AN OBLIQUE 

EXAMPLE XX. 

How can he exalt his thoughts to any thing- great or noble, 
who only believes that, after a short turn on the stage of this 
world, he is to sink into oblivion, and to lose his consciousness 
for ever ? 

The first of these, Ex. XVIII. receives the 
suspensive slide at the end precisely for the same 
reason as Ex. V. p. 108. The next sentence, 
Ex. XIX. is a question of the same form as 
Ex. IV. p. 107, and it not only receives the sus- 
pensive slide at the end, but if pronounced so 
as to convey the fullest meaning, takes the sus- 
pensive emphasis on most of the principal words: 
for, in proportion as it is believed that the hearer 
cannot but answer in the negative, he is urged to 
answer (mentally) one way or the other. The 
last sentence, Ex. XX. is a question of that form 
which requires a conclusive inflection at the end ; 
nor can the conclusive slide, proper for that form, 
be changed in this instance for the suspensive 
slide, so as to make Ex. XX. coincide in pronun- 
ciation with Ex. XVIII. ; since the suspensive 
slide would intimate that it had been explained 
how, &c. and the interrogator not having entirely 
understood the explanation, wished to hear it 
again. The sentence ought, on the contrary, to 
be so pronounced, as to intimate the impossibi- 
lity of an answer ; and to give it this extra force 



OR REFERENTIAL MEANING. Ill) 

of signification, the regular harmonic accentua- 
tion should yield to the strong emphasis on many 
of the principal words of the sentence, the ear- 
nestness of the reader determining which. Thus 
also the senator Lucius, in the play of Cato, at 
the conclusion of his speech, urges, with a strong 
emphasis on several successive words, the argu- 
ment for peace, which he thinks unanswerable : 

EXAMPLE XXI. 

What men could do, 
Is done already. Heaven and earth will witness 
If Rome must fall, that we are innocent. 

It cannot fail to be remarked from these, and 
some of the preceding examples, that, in propor- 
tion as Reading is required to step beyond the 
regular harmonic pronunciation which merely 
exhibits the construction of a sentence, it ad- 
vances on the precincts of Speaking : for the 
extra or emphatic inflections not only exhibit 
the meaning of a passage, as we suppose it to 
have been intended by the author, but they sig- 
nify, in general, some of that earnestness or 
energy of mind which led him to employ it with 
so full an intention. Thus it happens in this, as 
in all other cases where we attempt to draw dis- 
tinctions for the sake of scientific arrangement, 
that, however obvious the distinction may appear 



120 SENTENCES HAVING AN OBLIQUE MEANING. 

on a general view of the subjects, the precise line 
which bounds them can no where be found. The 
transition from Reading to Speaking, which 
forms the subject of the next chapter, will there - 
fore be made without difficulty. 



CHAPTER III, 



IMPASSIONED READING, OR SPEAKING. 



Oinnis enim motus animi suum quendam a natura habet vul- 
tum, ct sonum, et gestum ; toturaque corpus hominis, et 
tjus oinnis vultus, omnesque voces, ut nervi in fklibus, ita 
sonant, ut a motu animi quoque sunt pulsac. 

CICERO. 



1. THE STATE OR TEMPER OF THE MIND IN 
SPEAKING. 

In recurring to the principles exhibited in the 
introductory essay, we find, that if' language, in 
its progress toward perfection, could have pro- 
ceded on the pattern of nature, it must have in- 
vented a word for every sentiment that was to 
be expressed, which word would have been pro- 
per for that sentiment, and for none other. The 
impossibility of such a proceeding forced an ar- 
tificial plan into use : when a new expression was 
wanted, two or more words were put together, 
each of which had served a particular purpose, 
but which, by modifying one another, were 



122 THE STATE OR TEMPER OF 

made to serve, collectively, another particular 
purpose : and thus by degrees losing all refer- 
ence, individually, to particular subjects, words 
became signs of general value, that might be put 
together so as to form a factitious word for any 
occasion, to serve instead of the one proper for 
the sentiment that would have been employed, 
if language could have been perfected on the 
pattern of nature. An apparatus that requires 
and implies so much art in the management, 
little accords, however, on many occasions, with 
the fervour and rapidity of our thoughts. When 
several circumstances press upon the mind at the 
same time*, all of which concur in producing 
the state or temper in which it finds itself, we 
would fain give utterance to them at once ; — 
we try the language of nature, — it is not ade- 
quate to our purpose, and we are driven back to 
artificial language by the same necessity which 
gave it birth. If the passion is violent, we give 
it vent in short abrupt sentences, which, from 
frequent use, suggest themselves as readily as the 
language of nature : still they are far from being 
adequate to our purpose, because they exhibit 
the circumstances by which we are influenced 

* A long train of circumstances, cannot, philosophically 
speaking, be present to the mind at once, but, practically 
speaking, it may : for the circumstances pass and repass with 
a rapidity of succession which time cannot measure. 



THE MIND IN SPEAKING. 123 

only by starts and fits; — we want the one word 
that shall lay bare the mind in a moment ; but 
it cannot be found, and we have only to avail 
ourselves of the best means in our power to sup- 
ply its place. In proportion as our feelings al- 
low of the employment of art, we seize upon 
those circumstances that are most prominent, 
and express them in sentences as closely con- 
nected or dependent as the forms of speech per- 
mit. Yet, however well cemented they may be, 
this consequence cannot but happen from the 
slow process of the communication, compared 
with the rapidity of thought, — that as the speaker 
is obliged to dwell on the circumstances that 
affect him one at a time, each may affect him 
somewhat differently from the rest, and there- 
fore, though in a single sentence, or a series of 
connected sentences, there will be one predomi- 
nant state of mind throughout the whole, and 
one general effect resulting from the circum- 
stances detailed, yet, in proceeding with the de- 
tail, that general effect will resolve itself into 
many subordinate varieties of temper and feeling, 
which may be very numerous both in kind and 
degree*. To take, for an example, the opening 
sentence of Cicero's oration for Milo : 

* It does not follow, because we feel the means of commu- 
nication to be immediately unequal to our thoughts, that there- 
fore our thoughts may not be benefited by the art which falsi 



124 THE STATE OR TEMPER OF 



Although I fear it may be a shame to be dismayed at the 
entrance of my discourse in defence of a most valiant man, 
and that it no ways becomes me, while Milo is more concern- 
ed for the safety of the state than for himself, not to shew the 
same greatness of mind in behalf of him ; yet this new form 
of prosecution terrifies my eyes, which, whatever way they 
turn, want the ancient custom of the forum, and the former . 
manner of trials. 

In projecting this sentence, the speaker must 
at once have felt the full weight of all the cir- 
cumstances mentioned in it, and probably of 
many more ; but in proceeding with it, the ge- 
neral feeling must have resolved itself into se- 
veral subordinate varieties, as each circumstance, 
in passing before the mind, became prominent 
before the rest, — a feeling of shame ; of respect 
and approbation ^ of self-dignity; of purer alarm; 
and of regret. The general feeling, which was a 
mixture of all these in their due proportions, 

be employed to make them known. Even when the sensibility 
is chiefly concerned, we increase the force of right impres- 
sions and remove wrong, by dwelling severally on the circum- 
stances that affect us. In matters of reasoning, there can be 
still less doubt of the tendency of language to improve our 
thoughts; for those which led to one conclusion in the rapid 
glance with which they were at first comprehended, frequently 
lead to another in the slow process of putting them into words. 
Hence it is that literary composition is the surest guide to the 
art of accurate thinking. 
5 



THE MIND IN SPEAKING. 125 

and of alarm far beyond the rest, would indeed 
be still predominant, and, throughout the whole, 
would modify the others ; but would not prevent 
them from taking their turn in their influence, 
separately, on the speaker's state of mind. 



2. CORRESPONDENCE OF NATURAL EXPRESSION 
WITH THE TEMPER OF THE MIND. 

Having thus adverted to the effects produced 
on the mind within by the intervention of artifi- 
cial language, we may now consider the signs of 
natural expression without, modified, as they will 
be, by the same causes. For however we may 
be driven by necessity to the use of artificial 
language, it is pretty certain that we scarcely 
ever make a complete exchange between that 
and the language of nature : some of the signs 
of natural expression will still remain, and will 
indicate the state or temper of the mind, though 
they cannot explicitly make known the circum- 
stances that produce it. These natural signs of 
inward feeling are the looks, the tones* of the 

* This word is not used here in the same sense as in the 
first and second chapters, where it was occasionally employed 
instead of accents or inflections. Here it means the qualities of 
the voice, in the same manner as when we speak of the tones of 
different instruments, as to sweetness, harshness, smoothness, 
&c. 



126 THE STATE OR TEMPER OF 

VOICE, the RATE OF UTTERANCE, and the GESTURE. 

Of these, the looks are least modified by the re- 
straints which language imposes: they signify at 
once (as far as they possess expression to make 
themselves intelligible) all that the speaker in- 
tends to say ; — they mark the state of his mind 
before he speaks, as well as indicate the subor- 
dinate feelings which arise as he proceeds. The 
tones of the voice are equally ready to obey the 
impulses of nature, but they must yield to the 
necessities of art: when emotion bursts out in 
short abrupt sentences which take the place of 
natural ejaculations, they are, perhaps, precisely 
such as would have accompanied those ejacula- 
tions : but in sentences of more contrivance, the 
tones will receive some modification, because 
they must accompany the sentence through all 
its parts to the end, and must bend to the slides 
which mark the construction. Still will they be 
eminently expressive of the speaker's state of 
mind, and in their several varieties of smooth, 
harsh, gentle, low, soft, loud, high, shrill, strong, 
firm, tremulous, will indicate the predominant 
and the subordinate feelings by which he is ac- 
tuated. The rate of utterance is a sign of tem- 
per which arises from the use of artificial lan- 
guage : yet it is perfectly natural, when we are 
obliged to express our thoughts by a succession 
of articulate sounds, that we should utter them 



THE MIND IN SPEAKING. 127 

sometimes in one' manner and sometimes in 
another, according to the state of mind we are 
in, — that is, with greater or less degrees of ra- 
pidity or slowness, or with more or less of even- 
ness and continuity. With regard to gesture, it 
is more liable than any of the signs of natural 
expression to yield to the modifications of art : 
nay, it is possible to render it entirely conven- 
tional, and make it signify the meaning of a sen- 
tence by denoting the words, or even the letters, 
of which it is composed : or, it may be panto- 
mimic, and infer a meaning by some action which 
makes it easily guessed at. Those alone are na- 
tural gestures which are involuntary ; though 
even of such gestures, it will often be difficult to 
say how far they depend upon nature, and how 
far upon habit. But the gestures employed in 
discourse are, in general, such as the speaker 
chooses to employ, and they serve to discrimi- 
nate, enforce, and illustrate his meaning, by 
marking the divisions of sentences, and assisting 
the emphatic slides. Gesture of this description 
is evidently artificial, inasmuch as we employ it 
to suit the exigencies of artificial language. Yet 
it is so far regulated by nature, that, according 
to the temper of the mind, it will be executed 
with more or less of force or languor, slowness or 
rapidity, restraint or boldness, frequency and in- 
termission. 



128 DISAGREEMENT OF THE NATURAL 

3. CASES IN WHICH THE NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL 
SIGNS DO NOT AGREE. 

When we make use of words to convey our 
own thoughts, and form our sentences at the 
moment we want them, the natural signs agree 
with the artificial with a readiness it would be 
difficult to prevent, But when sentences already 
prepared are set before us, and we feel that all 
our business is to read them, the natural expres- 
sion is that which arises from the consciousness 
of the office we are fulfilling: and it is not till 
we get rid of this consciousness, that the natural 
and the artificial signs are likely to agree. In 
silent reading, it is scarcely possible to enter 
warmly into an author's sentiments without sup- 
plying his language, mentally, with some of the 
signs of natural expression; because, in this case, 
the tendency of the imagination is, to make the 
reader think he is listening to another, not that 
he is fulfilling the office of a repeater : but the 
moment he hears the sounds of his own voice, 
the deception is at an end ; he cannot mistake 
himself for the author ; and while he still feels 
what the natural expression should be, he equally 
feels it would be out of his character to adopt it. 
If, however, he is really the author, and the dis- 
course has been prepared for the very occasion 



THE MIND IN SPEAKING. 129 

on which he pronounces it, nothing can prevent 
the natural signs from according completely with 
the artificial, but an unnecessary recollection of 
the preparation which has been made — a recollec- 
tion which will the less intrude itself, the less he 
has occasion to recur to the book that contains his 
discourse. Or if the reader, though not the au- 
thor of the language he uses, should nevertheless 
entertain the sentiments with as much warmth as 
if he were, (as in the sincere repetition of prayers 
from a written formulary,) the adaptation of the 
natural signs to the artificial would be equally in- 
evitable, except when prevented by the same 
circumstances as before. On such occasions, 
audible Reading ought, and may easily be made 
to lose its distinctive feature, and become impas- 
sioned ; and the same effect may take place on 
other occasions, if the reader, ceasing to regard 
himself as a mere repeater, will, for the time, 
make the sentiments his own, and deliver the lan- 
guage under that impression. For this purpose 
an effort of imagination will undoubtedly be ne- 
cessary ; but it needs not be so strong as actually 
to produce the state of mind which the circum- 
stances of the discourse suppose. A repetition, 
for instance, of Cicero's oration for Milo, from 
which a sentence was lately quoted, would not 
require that the reader should bring the situation 
of the original speaker so completely home to 



130 NARRATIVE MANNER. 

himself, as to be penetrated with the same feel- 
ings in their full force : no imagination can ac- 
complish so much ; nor would the expression be 
pleasing, which, when the occasion is not real, is 
as forcible as if it were. The imagination acts 
in different degrees ; and the reader who can 
sometimes warm his mind with a momentary im- 
pression that he is not reading, but speaking, 
may improve the capability by frequent exercise. 
In this, as in other cases, much may be done by 
system. There are some styles of speaking less 
difficult than others, and which, therefore, ought 
to be attempted earlier; and there are certain 
general characteristics of natural expression, 
which, being acquired before the more particu- 
lar, easily lead the way to them. The remainder 
of the present chapter will be occupied with di- 
rections to the student on these subjects. 



4. NARRATIVE MANNER. 

The first and simplest manner of speaking is 
that which is used in communicating ordinary 
information, when the subjects are not of a na- 
ture to affect the feelings — a manner which must 
frequently be proper in all kinds of discourse, 
whether narrative, descriptive, didactic, or argu- 
mentative j but which, for distinction's sake, 




Zandtn Fulffy At Pfprittvr SeptT2^M». 



NARRATIVE MANNER. 131 

may be called the narrative manner. It scarcely 
differs from Reading merely significant, except 
that, as the information which the speaker con- 
veys is supposed to come immediately from him- 
self, his deportment and address must correspond 
with his assumed situation. The eyes must not 
be continually fixed on the page, but if the book 
be consulted at all, it should be only as a note- 
book, to assist the memory. If a sitting posture 
be adopted, it should be one that leaves the 
speaker at liberty to look at the person or 
persons addressed, allows the body to move a 
little with the impulse of speech, and permits an 
occasional' gesture with the hand. (See the 
plate. J If a standing posture be chosen, it 
should not only give room for the same freedom 
of address, but be a good foundation for every 
variety of gesture which the other styles of 
speaking will require. In addressing a number 
of persons, the speaker should place himself di- 
rectly before them, and, having carried his eye 
modestly around, should fix his looks in front, 
and advance his right hand and arm in the same 
direction ; which advance being made horizon- 
tally from the body, will produce a correspond- 
ent advance of the opposite foot, in order to give 
the appearance of a proper balance*. The full 

* Prolato dextro stare, et eandem manum ac pedem pro- 
ferre, deforme est. This is a maxim of Quinctilian's, and the 

K 2 



132 NARRATIVE MANNER. 

weight of the body must be planted on one foot 
only, and rest lightly on the other ; and as it is 
natural, in beginning to speak, to incline forward 
toward the persons addressed, the full weight 
may at first be given to the advanced foot, which 
inclined position will raise the heel of the retired 
foot a little from the ground. The speaker may 
afterwards feel it proper to bring the body into 
an erect position, for which purpose its weight 
must be thrown back upon the retired foot, and 
the one in advance must be drawn in a little*. 
But increasing earnestness will continually bring 
him forward to his first position, and this will be 
found desirable on another account, — namely, 
that it better allows of a swing or sway of the 
body, in order to address the sides as well as the 
front. (See the plate. J For the looks, though 
at first directed in front, must afterward be car- 
ried to all parts of the auditory in succession, and 
the body must act in unison with them, by turn- 
ing itself with an easy flexible motion, so as 

direction given above, coincides with it. Our gait in walking 
teaches that an advance of one of the feet is naturally accom- 
panied with the advance of the opposite arm. However, when 
the advance of the foot is not directly in front, graceful ges- 
ture by no means forbids the arm on the same side to be 
Taised. 

* In the sentence immediately following the one just quoted 
Quinctilian says, — In dextrum incumbere interim datur, sed 
aquo pectore. Book XI. c. 3. 



NARRATIVE MANNER, 133 

always to bring the breast square to the persons 
addressed. As to the hand, it must not only 
vary its direction in the same manner, and fol- 
low the motion of the eyes continually, but must 
mark the progress of the discourse by its action. 
Where meaning is incomplete, the hand being 
raised, and thus signifying preparation for some 
other gesture, will accord with the suspension of 
the voice. Where an emphatic slide is employed 
to introduce some novel or remarkable circum- 
stance, or an harmonic slide, to indicate that the 
sentence approaches its end, the hand may add 
the force of action to the force of inflection. 
Where meaning, after being long in suspense, is 
at length completely formed, the dropping of the 
hand will properly coincide with the cadence of 
the voice. Where parts of sentences are opposed 
to, or balanced against each other, the hand, by 
being carried from side to side, or performing 
alternate action with the other hand, will aptly 
illustrate the nature of the construction. Where 
something that requires particular attention is in- 
dicated by a slower and weightier pronunciation 
than ordinary, the index or fore-finger extended 
before its fellows, and continually lifted up and 
down, so as to mark every accent with a gentle 
stroke, will greatly assist in securing the required 
attention. Where an enumeration of distinct 
particulars occurs, the same index applied in 



134 NARRATIVE MANNER. 

turn to the several fingers of the other hand, will 
properly mark the nature and the extent of the 
series. Where a description is to be made which 
comprehends any reference to relative situation, 
length, breadth, depth, distance, space, motion, 
or manner of action, the hands will move in a 
variety of different directions, as the picture of the 
objects in the speaker's mind may prompt. And, 
lastly, where a sentence does not seem to call for 
any gesture, the hands, for a while, may hang 
easily at the side, ready to commence action 
afresh when an occasion occurs for bringing them 
again effectually into use. Thus, where the 
composition is so unimpassioned as not to sug- 
gest any particular kind of gesture, a sufficient 
variety may nevertheless be found to prevent the 
sensation or the appearance of that awkwardness, 
which an assumed situation is likely to produce. 
— To these hints, it will, however, be proper to 
add, that, as the same position should not be con- 
tinued for a long time together, the position with 
the left foot advanced, though perhaps on the 
whole more convenient than any other, must oc- 
casionally be changed. The right foot may step 
forward, but rather in a side direction ; and the 
address, for a time, may be to that side, compre- 
hending the half of the audience, reaching from 
the right extremity to the middle. From this, a 
change may be made to a correspondent position 



ARGUMENTATIVE MANNER. 135 

on the left side, the left foot being advanced in 
a side direction, and the address may include 
the other half of the audience, reaching from the 
left extremity to the middle. The speaker will 
find himself getting nearer to his audience by 
these advances, when occasion should be taken 
to retreat a step or two, and the last step being 
made with the right foot, leaves him in the ori- 
ginal position, with the body erect on the right 
leg. In this address from side to side, the hands 
may gesticulate alternately, each on its own side, 
— but the left hand should seldom gesticulate 
alone : it may occasionally perform the principal 
gesture, but the other should be ready to sup- 
port it with auxiliary action ; and, in the same 
way, when the right is performing the principal 
gesture, the left may occasionally assist it. 



5. ARGUMENTATIVE MANNER. 

After the narrative manner of speaking may 
be described the argumentative, which is that 
we employ when our business is not merely to 
inform, but to convince. While we suppose the 
mind of our hearers to be passive, we have no- 
thing to do but with self-possession to present 
our subject in its proper shape and colour; but 



136 ARGUMENTATIVE MANNER. 

argument implies opinions or contrary feelings 
to be combated ; — the voice becomes louder, and 
generally higher; — the inflections are heigh- 
tened; that is, they move within greater inter- 
vals, going deeper into the grave, and higher 
into the acute ; — the motion of the eye is quick- 
er; — the rate of pronunciation is slow, mode- 
rate, and rapid by turns — slow, when a particu- 
lar point requires steady attention — rapid, when 
premises carefully collected present a sudden, 
irresistible conclusion. The hand and arm must 
accompany the strong inflections with frequent 
and decisive strokes, and some care must be em- 
ployed to perform these actions with variety, as 
well as to raise the arm with grace, and extend it 
with force and precision. In lifting the arm, the 
elbow should be raised before the hand, and be 
kept outwards from the body; the hand should 
not bend at the wrist, but keep in a line with the 
arm ; and the thumb should preserve its natural 
distance from the other fingers. This prepara- 
tion for an emphatic stroke should always begin 
in good time, the elbow gradually ascending 
with the current of pronunciation, till at the 
moment the action is wanted, the hand is 
brought down with a sudden spring. The di- 
rection of the stroke may be various. When the 
hand is extended toward the front, the prepara- 
tion may bring the tips of the fingers near the 



ARGUMENTATIVE MANNER. 137 

mouth, and the action will be completed by pro- 
pelling the hand again to the front, with the palm 
outwards, and the fingers pointing down. This 
may sometimes be performed with both hands. 
When the address is to the side, the preparation 
may lift the hand as high as the head, and the 
completion of the action extend the arm to its 
original position, with the hand either prone or 
outwards as before. Sometimes the hand may 
be merely brought nearer the body, and then 
thrust forward to its original position: or it may 
be thrown with a jerk toward the persons ad- 
dressed. When a member which terminates 
with the upward inflection, requires an emphatic 
stroke, the hand, instead of being arrested by the 
action, may recoil from it, and, springing up- 
wards, agree with the suspension of the tone ; 
for instance: 

EXAMPLE. 

I demand justice of you, fathers, upon the robber of the 
public treasury, the oppressor of Asia Minor and Pamphylia, 
the invader of the rights and privileges of Romans, the scourge 
and curse of Sicily. 

CICERO AGAINST VERRES. 

A forcible action should accompany each of 
the inflections here marked; but it should recoil 
and mark suspension at the end of the penul- 
timate member. — On some occasions, the hand 



138 MEDITATIVE MANNER. 



may at once spring upwards, and make its em- 
phatic stroke in an elevated instead of a down- 
ward position, particularly when the speaker 
expresses triumph or encouragement. 



6. MEDITATIVE MANNER. 

Next in order to the Narrative and Argumen- 
tative, may be described a manner of speaking 
which we may call meditative. It takes place 
when the speaker seems to follow, not to guide, 
the train of thought; — that is to say, when he 
does not seek to convey information of which 
he is previously possessed, or to establish a truth 
of which he is previously convinced, but reflects 
for his own information or pleasure, and pursues 
his reflections aloud. In this mode of speaking, 
the tone of voice is generally low, the rate of 
utterance tardy, while the thought is undeter- 
mined, but brisk when any point js suddenly 
evolved. The eyes are frequently upward or 
cast upon the ground, and only directed to the 
spectators when something in the way of infor- 
mation occurs. The gesture describes small 
spaces; — the hand, after wandering for a mo- 
ment or two, suddenly stops and keeps for awhile 
in a suspended position; the looks at the same 
time being fixed ; till at length the development 



STYLES OF SPEAKING QUALIFIED. 139 

of thought again gives freedom to the action. 
The hand is sometimes held under or near the 
chin, or applied to the forehead: at other times 
the tips of the fingers of both hands are applied 
together, while the arms touch the sides of the 
body. If the train of thought flows with com- 
parative ease, the hand may repose itself on some 
neighbouring object, or be placed in the bosom, 
or the arms may be folded across the breast. 
The motions of the feet must accord with the 
other gestures — the steps being sometimes quick 
and uncertain — sometimes suddenly arrested — 
then again acquiring freedom and ease. 



7. CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH QUALIFY ANY OF THE 
STYLES OF SPEAKING. 

All discourse which does not acquire a cha- 
racter of expression from passion and emotion, 
will fall under one of the three styles of speaking 
described above. But it must not be expected 
that, in the same piece, the style of speaking 
will continue unchanged throughout. A narra- 
tive will frequently demand some of the eager- 
ness of argument; argument is often accompa- 
nied by a statement of premises which must be 
made in the plainest and simplest manner ; and 
meditation, if the train of thought flows with 



140 STYLES OF SPEAKING QUALIFIED. 

freedom, will have the ease of narration; if the 
points are dubious, will require that they should 
be balanced one against another with the ear- 
nestness of disputation. Nor must those mo- 
mentary changes of manner be forgotten, which 
subordinate circumstances produce while the 
slow progress of speech gives each in turn a pro- 
minence before the rest. And if a circumstance 
of superior importance occurs, calculated to pro- 
duce decided passion or emotion in the speaker's 
mind, the plain style of narration, or argument, 
or meditation, must give place for a time to the 
peculiar expression which that passion or emotion 
requires. A modification of manner will also 
arise from the nature of the composition, and 
from the character or the situation of the speak- 
er : First, from the nature of the composition : — 
what is written in an easy colloquial style, must 
be pronounced with a rate of utterance more 
fluent, tones more familiar, rhythmus less pal- 
pable*, looks less sedate, and gesture less exten- 
sive, than what is rhetorical, poetical, or other- 
wise raised above the level of common discourse. 
In colloquial gesture the play of the hand is 
mostly from the elbow or the wrist, while the 
upper arm touches the side ; and a shrug, a nod, 
or a slight twisting of the body, takes place of the 

* See Chap. I. Sect. 9. page 58. 



VEHEMENT MANNER. 141 

regulated gestures which the higher kinds of 
composition demand. — Secondly, from the cha- 
racter or situation of the speaker: — a preacher in- 
structing his flock; a general haranguing his 
army; a senator addressing the president of the 
assembly; ought each to have a different manner, 
arising from a sense of the relation in which he 
stands to his audience ; and this difference should 
appear, though each may happen to pronounce 
the same sentences. The same remark may be 
applied to other situations, whether real or as- 
sumed. 



8. VEHEMENT MANNER. 

When discourse turns upon subjects of strong 
and immediate interest, which fasten on the 
speaker's feelings, and excite any of the active 
or violent passions, as confidence, determination, 
courage, fierceness, triumph, pride, indignation, 
anger, rage, hatred, fear, remorse, despair, envy, 
malice; — a manner of speaking arises which may 
take the comprehensive name of vehement. 
Of the three plain styles of speaking already 
named, the argumentative is that which is chiefly 
liable to rise into vehemence. It may be said 
to be plain, while the subject is of an abstract or 
general nature, or while the speaker is only ad- 



142 Vehement manner* 

vancing to the more important parts of his dis-* 
course. But when he employs exhortation, en- 
couragement, warning, remonstrance, menaces, 
or is carried by his subject into any of the pas- 
sions mentioned above, the manner of expression 
becomes very distinguishable from that which 
is merely argumentative- In expressing confi- 
dence, courage, determination, pride, the voice is 
strong and loud, but with respect to pitch, is in 
a firm middle tone. In remorse, hatred, envy, 
malice, it is generally low and harsh. Anger, 
rage, scorn, have the same harshness, but usually 
the tone is higher. Remonstrance is generally in 
a low and more gentle tone. In despair the voice 
is frequently loud and shrill. Fear, when it leads 
to action, resembles other vehement passions in 
many of its effects; but when it entirely relaxes 
the frame, and takes away the power of action, 
or when it is excited by the contemplation, 
rather than the presence of danger, it comes, in 
either case, under a different description. Ex- 
traordinary vehemence in any of the passions, 
generally accelerates the rate of utterance ; 
though in hatred and malice it may be retarded, 
and become slow and drawling. With regard to 
gesture — it will be performed with a tension of 
the muscles proportioned to the strength of the 
passion, and what was artificial will frequently 
give place to that which is forced by nature. 



PLAINTIVE MANNER. 143 

In confidence, pride, triumph, the body is erect, 
and sometimes thrown back -, the hand places 
itself on the breast or the hip, or is thrown up- 
wards with a correspondent motion of the head. 
In exhortation, the hands are raised — in remon- 
strance, they are gently but repeatedly pushed 
forward with the palms out, and the fingers 
pointing upwards. In fierceness, anger, rage, 
the brows are contracted, the foot stamps, the 
body inclines forward, and the hand is instinc- 
tively clinched. In hatred, the hand is violently 
pushed with the palm outwards toward the ob- 
ject, and the head at the same time averted. In 
fear, the hands raise themselves as a defence, 
and the body draws back to avoid the dreaded 
object 



9. PLAINTIVE MANNER. 

Opposite to vehemence of manner is that style 
of speaking which we call plaintive. When 
the subjects of narration or meditation excite 
grief in a moderate degree, pity, regret, a soft 
and tender melancholy, or any kindred feeling, 
the tone of voice is smooth, tender, and melo- 
dious ; the rate of utterance even and moderate ; 
the head is frequently shaken mournfully; the 
eyes are alternately raised, and then cast down, 
and the hands accompany them with a corres- 

5 



144 GLOOMT OR SOLEMN MANNER. 

pondent and somewhat languid motion, being 
lifted slowly, and then suffered to fall lifeless to 
their place. 



10. GAY OR LIVELY MANNER. 

The expression proper for gay and lively 
subjects is distinguished from the last by requir- 
ing a more varied tone of voice, a brisker rate of 
utterance, and more quickness in the looks and 
action. It is not always, however, that delight \ 
joy, enthusiasm, rapture, as they are embodied in 
poetry, demand a style of expression altogether 
opposite to the plaintive ; something of tender- 
ness may still discover itself in the tones of the 
voice, and the manner may be said to be lively 
rather than gay.. But in expressing mirth and 
raillery, the manner is quite opposite to the 
plaintive, and it is very often colloquial. 



11. GLOOMY OR SOLEMN MANNER. 

In this classification of the general varieties of 
manner that take place in speaking, the last 
which may be mentioned as acquiring its cha- 
racter from the nature of the emotions to be ex- 
pressed by it — is that we call the gloomy or 

7 



GLOOMY OR SOLEMN MANNER. 145 

solemn. It embraces such passions and affec- 
tions as, axve, deep melancholy, dread, sublime con- 
templation, and devotion to a Being infinitely su- 
perior. The eyes are frequently cast upward, 
and then fixed on the ground with an inclina- 
tion of the body ; the tone of voice is low, and 
occasionally tremulous ; the rate of utterance is 
slow and weighty ; the hands are raised, and 
then suffered to drop in correspondence with 
the looks ; and the whole frame frequently ap- 
pears to sink backward, as if overcome by the 
feelings which press upon it. 



CHAPTER IV. 

DRAMATIC READING, OR ACTING. 



In comoediis servi, lenones, parasiti, nistici, milites, ve- 

tnlae, meretriculae, ancillae, senes austeri ac mites, juvenes se- 
ven ac luxuriosi, matron®, puellae, inter se discernnntur. 

Aliud oratio sapit actione enim constat, non imita- 

tione. QUINCTILIAN. 



DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPEAKING AND ACTING. 

Up to a certain point, the preparation for every 
branch of public speaking is the same. The 
preacher, the senator, the barrister, the actor, 
should all be competent to pronounce individual 
words with propriety, to inflect the voice with 
significance and harmony in the utterance of 
sentences, and to adapt the manner of expression 
to the ever-changing subjects of discourse. When 
thus far qualified, the pupil may be dismissed 
from the hands of his teacher, leaving the appli- 
cation of the general principles of the art to the 
particular purposes of his profession, to be made 
by himself. Yet, as ornamental Reading some- 
times requires a species of mimickry that borders 
upon acting, it may not be amiss to mention 
briefly, in this concluding chapter, what it is 
that properly confers upon Reading the appel- 
lation of Dramatic. 



DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPEAKING, &C. 147 

In assuming a character which requires no 
other peculiarity of manner than what arises from 
the expression of passions common to mankind 
at large, a person needs not deviate from his own 
style of speaking — that is to say, from the style 
which he would himself adopt, if the passion 
were excited in him to the same degree. But 
there are some passions and modes of behaviour, 
(chiefly of the ridiculous kind,) which affect a 
few, but are by no means general ; as, foppery, 
prudery, coquetry, pedantry, drunkenness, do- 
tage, clownishness, vulgarity, bashfulness ; and 
modes of address and elocution which adhere to 
persons of a particular age, sex, or country, or of 
a particular profession ; as a bold roughness to 
a soldier or sailor; acuteness of tone to a boy or 
a woman; brogue to an Irishman; and a totter- 
ing gait, with feeble piping voice, to an old man. 
A reader who should attempt any of these pecu- 
liarities, would probably be obliged to give up 
entirely the manner of speaking natural to him- 
self, and assume one to which no impulse of 
general passion could ever be supposed to lead 
him. Or if, in reading a dialogue in which seve- 
ral persons took part, he should choose to dis- 
tinguish one from another by something more 
than a difference of passion, it is evident he 
would still be obliged to deviate in some respect 
from his own manner in all the characters but 

l 2 



148 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPEAKING, &C. 

one, although none of the peculiarities above 
enumerated were necessary to be exhibited*. 
Dramatic Reading, then, differs from Reading 
merely impassioned, by the imitation of another 
person's elocution and deportment — an imitation 
which can seldom take place but in reading 
works of the dramatic kind. Yet, even in pro- 
nouncing this kind of composition, it is not in- 
dispensable that a dramatic style of reading 
should be adopted ; and tragedies in particular 
may almost always be impressively read without 
it ; because, in them, the passions are usually 
such alone as are common to mankind at large, 
and changes of voice and manner are not neces- 
sary to make sentiment affecting, though they 
may be of advantage for the sake of clearer dis- 
tinction and variety. Comic tales, however, in 
which humourous dialogue occurs, can seldom be 
read effectively without a little dramatic discri- 
mination, though it needs not be so strong as 
when the composition is entirely in dialogue. 
Some touches of dramatic colouring will also be 
necessary in reading the "Seven Ages of Life," 
the Description of Queen Mab, and other pieces 
of a similar kind. 

* I beg leave to mention the entertainment I call " Shaks- 
pearian Readings/' as a specimen of what I mean by Drama- 
tic Reading. 



APPENDIX. 



CONTAINING 

PRACTICAL AIDS FOR READING THE LITURGY. 



THE KIND OF READING PROPER FOR THE LITURGY. 

From the Theory of Elocution unfolded in the 
foregoing pages, it is now proposed to deduce 
some assistance for properly reading the chief 
parts of the service of the Church. 

And first, from the divisions at pages 1, 2, 3, 
it will at once be evident what kind of Reading 
the minister should adopt. If it were Mechani- 
cal Reading, he would appear to be no further 
occupied than in sounding the words and join- 
ing them together: — if it were merely Significant 
Reading, he would seem to be in the situation 
of one, who correctly narrates the expression of 
sentiments, which he does not assume as his 
own : — and if it were Dramatic Readings how- 
ever he might appear to others, he must, within 
himself, be conscious of hypocrisy. The kind 
of Reading, therefore, which he is bound to 
adopt, is that which identifies itself with speak- 
ing : — using the term strictly, he must not be a 
Reader, but must declare, and exhort, and con- 



150 APPENDIX. 

fess, and pray, and praise, as from himself; while 
a higher principle than the teacher of elocution 
is called upon to advocate, should make the feel- 
ings real, and prevent the hypocrisy of artificial 
display. 

But though, to do justice to the liturgy, the 
delivery must entirely agree with speaking, in- 
struction can scarcely reach beyond the requi- 
sites which constitute good reading, namely a 
completely articulate and just pronunciation of 
the words, — a varied, significant, and well 
adapted modulation of the sentences. The ex- 
pression which should be superadded to these — 
the outward signs of actual feeling, may be indi- 
cated by the teacher, but can be found only in 
a proper sense of the different duties which are 
to be performed, and in cultivating the frame of 
mind suitable to each. 

PRONUNCIATION OF WORDS OCCURRING IN THE 
LITURGY. 

With respect to this subject, it is hoped 
the first chapter furnished all that was needed 
in theory; and the reader is advised to improve 
his practice by a regular course of exercises, 
such as will be found in the first chapter of 
" The Practice of Elocution". In addition to, 
or in lieu of those exercises, he should acquire 
the complete utterance of the following words : 



APPENDIX. 151 

Silent letters are printed in italic ; the accent of the polysyl- 
lables will be known by their classification. 

Wa/k a/ms psalms wrath 1 earth cleanse strayed done* 

wou/dest 3 shew 4 sinned s called erred pleased shewed blessed 

wicked 6 settled buried 7 tookest lighten 8 holpen heaven 



1 This word ought to rhyme with path, bath, &c. ; but 
usage, the great norma loquendi, requires it to be pronounced 
as rhyming with Goth. 

2 This word rhymes with sun. The compound undone is 
commonly accented on the last syllable, but being in antithe- 
sis with done, is pronounced undone. 

3 This word and its relations couldest and shouldest have so 
awkward an effect when pronounced with two syllables, that 
the reader of the Liturgy is advised to comply with the cus- 
tom which on all other occasions makes them monosyllables. 

4 This is pronounced sho. 

5 It is a general rule, in reading the Scriptures and the Li- 
turgy, to sound ed distinctly in those words which, in other 
cases, would have the e silent. But if a vowel precedes, the 
e should be silent even in the Liturgy. Thus strayed is pro- 
nounced in one syllable, buried in two, justified in three, &c. 
In settled, assembled, &c. the e should also be silent, because 
it is silent before the d is added. On the other hand, the 
words shewed, followed, hallowed, &c. should have the ed dis- 
tinct, because the w which is silent before those letters are 
added, is then pronounced as a consonant. 

6 To sound the ed of this word id may be justified by ana- 
logy as well as usage ; but the corruption of shut e, into shut 
w,is vulgar or provincial: — sinnud, wickud, sittuth, providnnce, 
forgivenuss, are examples of faulty utterance in this respect, 

which the Reader must correct or avoid. 

7 This is pronounced berrid. 

8 Usage is extremely capricious in determining when c should 



152 APPENDIX. 

strengthen bounden graven burthen brethren women 9 pardon 
deacons Aumble evil 10 devzl Scripture " knowledge ia righteous *■ 
either ,4 neither contrite rather I5 spirit covet l6 unto I7 Sa- 
tan Pontius I8 arise again I9 against forget obeyed betrayed 

upon 2 ° infinite requisite thanksgiving forefathers num- 



and should not be sounded in the unaccented termination en. 
It should be heard in sudden, and should also be heard when 
a liquid precedes, but to sound it in other cases generally gives 
an impression of childish nicety, though it must be confessed 
the syllables tn,pn 3 vn, Sec. are very cacophonous. 

9 Pronounced wimmin. 

10 It is not a general rule to sink the sound of i in unac- 
cented il, though usage requires it in this and the next word. 

11 See page 37- v. ll See page 43. ii. 
11 Pronounced ri-chus : see page 44. v. 

14 See page 45. 

* 5 The a in this word is sounded as in father. 

16 Pronounced cuvvit. Concerning the last syllable, com- 
pare Note 6 . 

17 When this word is uttered singly, it is pronounced with 
an accent on the first- syllable, but forming part of a sentence, 
it is always pronounced as two unaccented syllables of some 
other word " a blessing-unto-the righteous" u a lantern-unto- 
my feet," " a bird-unto-the hill". 

" Pronounced Pont-yus. 

19 The diphthong in this word is decidedly shortened into 
the shut e, making the last syllable a rhyme to men. So also 
of at in the next word. 

*° Uttered singly, this word has an accent on the last sylla- 
ble, but in a sentence, it is joined, as other dissyllabic particles, 
to some other word, and has either no accent at all, or only a 
secondary accent. In the following passage of the Confession, 
" have mercy-upon-us-miserable-offenders", it has a secondary 
accent, because there is no word immediately after, which. 



APPENDIX. 153 

bered ai gathered scattered ordered worshipped followed hal- 
lowed justified magnified penitent " pestilence parliament 
sac-rament cherubin seraphin Sab-a-oth Is-ra-el visible" Tri- 
nity su&tilty rebelled 24 beloved received declared pre- 
pared redeemed conceived oppressed distressed assembled 
obedient desireth * 5 absolveth dissemble * 6 transgressions 
apostles begotten 27 testimony necessary spiritual sa- 
crifices 28 necessity felicity iniquities forgivenesses 

benediction universal inspiration* 9 apostolic. 



claims an accent, and the interval between mercy and misera- 
ble is long. But in the same passage as it occurs several times 
in the opening of the Litany, the word us should be accented, 
and upon is then without any accent : "have mercy — upon us, 
miserable sinners." The reason of this difference is, that in 
the Confession, all the words after mercy, do but repeat what 
from the tenor of the foregoing sentences, is already implied : 
We confess ourselves miserable offenders : "but thou, O Lord, 
have mercy upon us miserable offenders ; spare thou", &c. 
In the Litany, the passage is independent of such implied 
connexion, and us has the same kind of emphasis that we na- 
turally give to me in a correspondent passage, Luke xviii. 13, 
" God, be merciful to me, a sinner." 

21 Respecting this and the following nine words, see note s . 

22 Beware of saying penitunt pestilunce, &c. See note 6 . 

23 Not viz-ub-ble, Trinnutty, but viz-e-ble, Trin-e-ty. The 
compound invisible when in antithesis with visible, is accented 
on the first syllable. Compare note 2 . 

24 See note 5 . Assembled may drop the e. 

25 Deziretk (not deziruth) abzolveth. 

26 The ss should not be sounded z in this word. 

27 See note 8 . 23 Pronounced sac-rc-fl-ziz. 

29 Letter i not at the beginning of a word, and unaccented, 
is always sounded e. To say inspl-ration. is irregular, and 
quite unnecessary. 



154 APPENDIX. 

Being prepared for properly pronouncing the 
Liturgy as far as regards Articulation, the reader 
should next apply himself to acquire that mo- 
dulation of all its parts, which will exhibit the 
construction, meaning, and connexion of the 
sentences to the best advantage. To offer as- 
sistance for this purpose without the opportunity 
of oral illustration, is an undertaking of some 
little hazard 5 in the first place, because the marks 
made use of, may be misunderstood or misap- 
plied a nd, i n the second place, because the mode 
of reading adopted may not, in every instance, 
be entitled to exclusive preference. These un- 
favourable circumstances cannot be escaped, 
and the reader is only requested to weigh them 
with candour. 

EXPLANATION OF THE MARKS ADOPTED FROM 
PAGE 165, TO THE END OF THE VOLUME. 

The acute accent, as heretofore, signifies the 
upward inflection or slide of the voice ; the 
grave accent, the downward. A horizontal line 
after an accent, and running over a word or 
succession of words, implies that the previous 
accent is the principal accent of the clause, and 
that all the other accents (if any) as far as the 
line extends, are secondary to it. Emphasis is 
sometimes, though rarely, signified by italics : 



APPENDIX. 155 

when not so indicated, the accents are deemed 
sufficient. The mark of short quantity ( u ) is 
occasionally put over a word as a caution that 
it should not be accented ; and the mark of 
long quantity (") to signify that the syllable 
should be distinct without being emphatic. This 
mark [ placed at the commencement of a clause 
or sentence, means that the voice is to drop into 
a lower key. The pauses are marked by lines, by 
dotted lines, and by the usual stops. The dotted 
line implies a continuing meaning, and that the 
pause should have no tone before it but just 
such as would occur if no pause were made. 
The plain line implies a greater or less degree of 
suspension in the previous tone. The comma 
marks off clauses or words in grammatical series, 
sometimes preceded by an upward or conjunc- 
tive, sometimes by a downward or disjunctive 
inflection, as greater or less distinctness is aimed 
at, or the ear requires variety ; and the reader 
is at liberty to change many of the inflections 
which are marked in such places, if his taste so 
incline. The semicolon and colon are used 
where perfect grammatical construction is 
formed, but where some meaning to follow is 
kept in view. The previous inflection, in such 
case, is sometimes upwards, sometimes down- 
ward : — if little doubt appear as to which inflec- 
tion is proper, the semi-colon is employed ; but 



156 APPENDIX. 

if the inflection marked admits of being changed 
according to the taste of the reader, the colon 
is used. The full stop, as usual, signifies the 
construction and meaning to be complete. 

For the better applying of these directions, it 
is proposed to add 



REMARKS ON SOME OF THE READINGS HEREAFTER 
POINTED OUT. 

In the sentences, the first of the three which 
have been selected from the rest, When the 
wicked, &c. is a periodic sentence, that is, the 
construction is entirely dependent to the end, 
and it divides, as all periodic sentences, into a 
suspensive and a conclusive member. The sus- 
pensive member terminates at right, with an up- 
ward inflection, which in that place is properly 
called Suspensive, and the downward at alive is 
called Conclusive. To these all the other ac- 
cents in the sentence are subservient or prepa- 
ratory, and are not marked, but left to the ear 
and taste of the reader ; with the exception of 
the upward accent on the word away, which is 
marked on account of its comprehensive effect 
in reducing all the other accents of the clause, 
as far as the horizontal line reaches, to be se- 
condary to it. For the reason of this, consult 



APPENDIX. 157 

page 115, Example xvii. and the remarks follow- 
ing it. 

The second sentence, Enter not into judg- 
ment*, &c. is not periodic, inasmuch as the for- 
mer member terminating at Lord, is not gram- 
matically dependent on what follows. Yet there 
seems little question that an upward inflection 
should be used in this place to connect the two 
members, rather than the downward to enforce 
their grammatical independence. The upward 
accent, in this case, should be called Conjunc- 
tive, as the other, when used under such cir- 
cumstances, should be called Disjunctive. This 
conjunctive accent is thrown back in this parti- 
cular place from the last word Lord to the word 
judgment; the reason of which is, that servant 
and Lord — the one the speaker (me, thy ser- 
vant), the other the person addressed — would be 
implied even without being expressed, and like 
personal pronouns in similar cases, are without 
primary accent. Yet the words, O Lord, need 
not therefore be deprived of a full solemn pro- 
nunciation : all that is meant is, that the tone 
from judgment to Lord is continuative. In the 

* This sentence is not to be here read as a prayer (though 
it has the form of one), but to be declared or given out as a 
text of Scripture, according to the spirit of which, the peo- 
ple are to frame their minds, in the duties they are about to 
perform. 



158 APPENDIX. 

same sentence the phrase thy sighthas an allusive 
meaning to the sight of others: it is therefore em- 
phatic, and the emphasis is made by depriving 
sight of its accent, and giving the force to its 
associate thy, the whole phrase being pronounced 
with one slide of the voice. In the same sentence, 
the word no is marked with a downward accent, 
which is merely one of the harmonic or prepa- 
ratory slides, generally omitted to be marked : 
— this leads to another slight suspensive accent 
at living, and this again prepares for the conclu- 
sive at justified. 

The next sentence, If we say, &c, is likewise 
a sentence consisting of two independent mem- 
bers, with this difference between it and the 
sentence just considered, that, in the one now 
in view, the downward or disjunctive accent 
should be used between the two members, which 
disjunctive accent is on the word truth, the four 
following words being such as are always without 
accent, if without allusive meaning. 

In the Exhortation, the address Dearly be- 
loved Brethren is marked to be read disjunc- 
tively •, but as it might be read suspensively 
(though the writer of these remarks thinks with 
far less effect), it is pointed with a colon, inti- 
mating that the Reader may use the other in- 
flection without doing wrong to the construction. 
With respect to the frequent momentary pauses 



APPENDIX. 159 

indicated by the dotted lines in these and other 
parts of the Service, the Reader needs not re- 
gard them too scrupulously : all the pauses 
marked may be made, provided they keep a due 
proportion to the principal pauses, and are ac- 
companied by suitable continuing tones : but if 
the principal pauses are shortened, many of these 
subordinate pauses must be neglected. — The 
clause after the word cloke marked by the hori- 
zontal line, is a pronominal clause, its meaning 
having been anticipated by a foregoing passage ; 
for in saying that the Scripture moveth us to ac- 
knowledge and con/ess our manifold sins, we can 
mean no other than an acknowledgement and 
confession " before the face of Almighty God, 
our heavenly Father". Still, though this latter 
clause must be uttered in the continuative tone 
suitable to its foreknown meaning, it must not 
be deprived of distinctness and solemnity. In 
what immediately follows, the words humble, 
lowly, penitent and obedient, as denoting a series 
of particulars, are pointed with commas, and 
are marked with those inflections which, it is pre- 
sumed, a good ear accustomed to a vernacular 
manner of accentuation, would instinctively 
adopt; but as there may be a difference of taste 
on this point, it is proper to observe, that only 
the last accent, that on obedient, is prescribed by 
the sense, and that the sense will permit the 



160 APPENDIX. 

others to be either upward or downward : — See 
Example X. page 90, and the second note in the 
same page. So likewise the clauses which refer 
seriatim to the different parts of the service, — 
to render thanks, &c. to set forth, &c. to hear, &c. 
and to ask, &c. are marked to be pronounced 
disjunctively, except the last but one, which 
takes the upward or conjunctive as a prepara- 
tion for the cadence of the whole. Here again 
the reader is at liberty to deviate by using con- 
junctive instead of disjunctive accents; though 
it is presumed with inferior effect : — See Exam- 
ples XXIX. and XXX. pages 95, 96, and there- 
marks introducing and following them. Previous 
to this last passage, the mark before the sen- 
tence, \And although tee ought at all times, &c. 
signifies that the tone takes a low pitch in begin- 
ning that sentence ; and the horizontal line fol- 
lowing the accent at all, points out the clause as 
being pronominal, that is, merely repeating what 
has been already signified. 

In the Confession, the members forming per- 
fect construction are sometimes marked to ter- 
minate conjunctively, sometimes disjunctively ; 
but the colon is intended as an indication that 
the opposite accent may, in every instance, be 
used, if the conception or ear of the reader 
should so incline ; and the same may be said of 
the modulative accents which precede the com- 






APPENDIX. 161 

mas. Respecting the clause, But thou, O Lord 
have mercy, &c. — See note 20 , page 152. 

The Absolution commences with a long pe- 
riodic sentence, of which the suspensive mem- 
ber terminates at remission of our sins, and the 
word he, which begins the conclusive member, 
is grammatically redundant. The second us in 
the next sentence is emphatic, bringing the pre- 
vious general declaration home to the congre- 
gation in particular. 

The Lord's Prayer has already been the 
subject of some observations in a note at page 
84 ? and these, with attention to the new marks 
at page 167, will suffice. 

In the Gloria Patri, &c, disjunctive accents 
are, in several places, modulatively used, where 
perhaps many readers would employ conjunctive 
accents. These accents, as in other places of 
similar construction, are not prescribed, but only 
recommended as agreeable to the ear, while, if 
they properly prepare for each other, they exhi- 
bit the construction much more clearly than any 
succession of similar accents. 

In the Venite, and all the following hymns, 
the verses, generally, are made to terminate con- 
junctively ; for in almost each verse, there is a 
view to the next : but here, as before, the colon 
must be deemed an indication that the reader 

M 



162 APPENDIX. 

who uses the opposite accent will not deviate 
from grammatical propriety. 

In the Apostles' Creed, there is the same 
liberty of choice. The articles of faith are in 
some places marked to be conjunctively read — 
in others, disjunctively. Should the reader 
choose to use a greater proportion of the con- 
junctive, or of the disjunctive accents, there is 
nothing in the construction to forbid ; and the 
same observation applies to the Nicene Creed at 
page 188. In the latter, the first clause of each 
paragraph is marked to terminate disjunctively 
— / believe in one God : And in one Lord Jesus 
Christ : And I believe in the Holy Ghost. There 
seems a propriety in the distinctive effect of this 
accent when making the first mention of each 
person of the Trinity ; but the mention of the 
subordinate points of belief does not appear to 
demand, throughout, the same degree of dis- 
tinctive force, and the conjunctive accent may 
therefore, in many places, be used for the other. 

In the Litany, the response of the congre- 
gation, Good Lord deliver us, is, in every in- 
stance, the conclusive member of a periodic sen- 
tence, of which the suspensive member is always 
made up of independent clauses — independent 
of each other, though all have a common de- 
pend ance on the conclusive member. These 



APPENDIX. 1GS 

clauses might, with perfect grammatical pro- 
priety, be pronounced conjunctively, but the 
mode suggested is recommended as far more 
emphatic and impressive. Consult on this point, 
the remarks preceding and following Examples 
XXIX. and XXX., pages 95, 96. 

The Response, We beseech thee to hear us> 
Good Lord, is not, like Good Lord deliver us, 
essential to complete what precedes, but is con- 
nected as a redundancy, not as a constituent 
clause. For this part of the Litany sets forward 
with the words " We sinners do beseech thee", 
&c. ; and every subsequent petition commencing 
with the conjunction that, includes the meaning 
of those words before they are actually expressed. 
The reader should therefore pronounce every 
intercession as if it were complete before the 
response is added, and then suppose it to be 
joined in continuation, as a pronominal clause, 
taking its tone from the previous accent, and 
having all its own accents secondary to it. 



It will be needless to pursue these observations 
further. If understood, they will afford a suffi- 
cient insight into the intention of the marks 
elsewhere ; if they have perplexed the reader, 
the perplexity will be increased by prolonging 
them. 

Ai <J 



164 APPENDIX. 

One general remark must, however, be added, 
though the reader's discretion may perhaps have 
anticipated it. In pronouncing the Liturgy with 
the pauses, accents, and emphases recommended, 
there must be nothing obtrusive in the manner of 
delivery, no apparent effort to produce effect, no 
appearance of beingguided byart,nor indeed any 
consciousness of art while the reader is in the ac- 
tual performance of his duty : he must not then 
be balancing the inflections or weighing the em- 
phases, but lose sight of the means, and trust 
entirely to the improved habit he has acquired 
for securing the end. The tenor of the forego- 
ing remarks must already have shown, that a 
very slavish obedience to any prescribed mode 
of reading is not needful; and the truth is, that 
as a large proportion of sentences may be mo- 
dulated with strict propriety in more ways than 
one, a reader is scarcely master of his art who 
does not sometimes vary even from himself. 



APPENDIX. 165 



THE CHIEF PARTS OF THE LITURGY WITH MARKS 
TO ELUCIDATE THE DELIVERY. 

[see the marks explained at page 154.] 



THE SENTENCES. 

Firm, declarative tone. 



When the wicked man...turneth away from his wickedness 

that he hath committed and doeth that which is lawful 

and right he shall save his soul alive. 



Enter not into judgment with thy servant... O Lord; for 
in thy' sight — shall no man living— be justified. 



If we say that we have no sin — we deceive ourselves — and 
the truth is not in us ; but if we confess our sins, — he — is 
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from 
all unrighteousness. 

THE EXHORTATION. 

Earnest and affectionate admonition both in tone 
and looks. 

Dearly beloved brethren: the scripture... moveth us... in 
sundry places... to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins 
and wickedness ; and that we should not dissemble nor cloke 
them... before the face of Almighty God... our heavenly Father 
— but confess them... with an humble, lowly, penitent, and 
obedient heart — to the end that we may obtain forgiveness of 
the same — by his infinite goodness and mercy. (And although 
we ought at all times... humbly to acknowledge our sins be- 



166 APPENDIX. 



fore God, — yet ought we most chiefly so to do... when we 
assemble and meet together ... to render thanks for the 
great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his 
most worthy praise, to hear his most holy word, and to ask 
those things which are requisite and necessary — as well for 
the body as the soul. Wherefore I pray and beseech you... 
as many as are here present — to accompany me... with a pure 
heart and humble voice... unto the throne of the heavenly grace 
— saying after me 

THE CONFESSION. 

Deep contrition and earnest supplication. 

The change in the address, "which is no longer to 
the congregation, should be indicated by a pro- 
per change in the direction of the looks. — See 
Psalm V. v. 3. 

Almighty and most merciful Father— we have erred and 
strayed from thy ways... like lost sheep : we have followed... 
too much... the devices and desires of our own hearts: we 
have offended against thy holy laws : we have left M^done... 
those things... which we ought to have done, and we have done 
those things... which we ought not to have done : and there is 
no health in us : (but thou...O Lord... have mercy upon us... 
miserable offenders: spare thou them...O God... which confess 
their faults : restore thou them that are penitent ; according 
to thy promises declared unto mankind... in Christ Jesu our 
Lord: and grant... 10 most merciful Father... for his sake... 
that we may hereafter... live a godly, righteous, and sober life 
— to the glory of thy holy name. 



APPENDIX. 167 

THE ABSOLUTION. 

Firm, declarative tone. 
The address to the congregation. 

Almighty God. ..the Father of our LordJesus Christ... who 
desireth not the death of a sinner... but rather that he may- 
turn from his wickedness... and live and hath given power 

and commandment to his ministers... to declare and pronounce 
to his people... being penitent... the absolution and remission of 

their sins He — pardoneth and absolveth all them that 

truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel. Where- 
fore... let us beseech him to grant w.?...true repentance... and 
his holy spirit; that those things may please him... which we do 
at this present, and that the rest of our life hereafter... may 
be pure and holy; so that... at the last... we may come to his 
eternal joy — through Jesus Christ... our Lord. 

THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

Profound resignation. 

Our Father wh ich art in heaven — hallowed. . .be. . .thy name : 
thy kingdom... come: thy will... be done in earth... as it is in 
heaven. 

Earnest and humble intreaty. 

Give us... this day... our daily bread: and forgive us.., our 
trespasses... as we forgive them that trespass against us: and 
lead us not into temptation ; but deliver us from evil. 

A very low tone, expressing a sense of sublimity. 

For thine... is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, 
for ever... and ever. 



168 APPENDIX. 

SHORT PETITIONS, GLORIA PATRI, ETC 

Earnestness aud solemnity. 



Priest. O Lord . . . open thou . . . our lips — 

Ans. And our mouth... shall show forth thy praise. 

Priest. O God... make speed to save us ; 

Ans. O Lord... make haste to help us. 

The tone more bold and cheerful. 

Glory... be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
Ghost 



As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be... 
world without end. 

Priest. Praise ye the Lord : 

Ans. The Lord's name... be praised. 



THE VENITE : MORNING SERVICE. 

The tone cheerful, expressing gratitude' and joy. 

Priest. O come... let us sing unto the Lord... let us heartily 
rejoice in the strength of our salvation : 

Cofigr. Let us come before his presence... with thanksgiv- 
ing, and show ourselves glad in him... with psalms : 

Priest. For the Lord... is a great God, and a great king 
...above all gods: 

Congr. In his hand... are all the corners of the earth, 
and the strength of the Kills... is his also : 



APPENDIX. 109 

Priest. The sea is his, and he made it, and his hand pre- 
pared the dry' land. 

Congr. lO come... let us worship, and fall down, and 
kneel before the Lord... our maker : 

Priest. For he. ..is the Lord our God; and we... are the 
people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. 

Congr. To-day... if ye will hear his voice — harden not 
your hearts. ..as in the pro vocation... and as in the day of temp- 
tation ... in the wilderness 

Priest. When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and 
saw my works : 

Congr. Forty years long... was I grieved with this gene- 



ration... and said... it is a people that do err in their hearts... 
for^they have not known my ways : 

Priest. Unto whom... I sware in my wrath... that they 
should not enter into my' rest. 

THE TE DEUM: MORNING SERVICE. 

The expression, at the commencement, as in the 
foregoing psalm. 



Priest. We praise thee...O God; we acknowledge thee... 
to be the Lord : 

Congr. All the earth... doth worship thee... the Father 
everlasting : 

Priest. To thee... all angels cry aloud... the heavens, and 
all the powers therein : 

Congr. To thee — , cherubin and seraphin... continually do 
cry 



1 70 APPENDIX. 

The expression must now assume increased so- 
lemnity. 

Priest " Holy, (holy, (Jioly...Lord God of Sabaoth 

Congr. Heaven and earth... are full of the majesty... of thy 

glory." 

Priest. The glorious company of the Apostles... praise 



thee : 



Congr. The goodly fellowship of the prophets... praise 



thee: 



Priest. The noble army of martyrs... praise thee : 
Congr. The holy church throughout all the world... doth 

acknowledge thee 

Priest. The Father... of an infinite Majesty : 
Congr. Thine honourable, true, and only Son : 
Priest. Also the Holy Ghost — the Comforter. 
Congr. Thou ... art the King of Glory . . . O Christ : 
Priest. Thou... art the everlasting Son... of the Father : 
Congr. When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man — thou 

didst not abhor the Virgin's womb : 

Priest. When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death 

— thou didst open the kingdom of heaven... to all believers: 
Congr. Thou sittest at the right hand of God...in the glory 

of the Father: 

Priest. We believe... that thou shalt come to be our judge : 
Congr. We therefore... pray thee... help thy servants... 

whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood : 

Priest. Make them to be numbered with thy saints... in 

glory everlasting. 

Congr. O Lord... save thy people, and bless thine heritage: 
Priest. Govern them, and lift them up... for ever. 



APPENDIX. 171 

Congr. Day by day... we magnify thee : 

Priest. And we worship thy name ever... world without 
end. 

Congr. Vouchsafe. ..O Lord. ..to keep us this day. ..without 
sin. 

Priest. O Lord have mercy upon us, have mercy upon 

us. 

Congr. O Lord let thy mercy lighten upon us ; as our 

trust is in thee : 

Conclude with much solemnity of cadence. 

Priest. O Lord in thee have I trusted; let me never 

be confounded. 

the magnificat: evening service. 

The expression as in the Venite. 

Priest. My soul... doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit 
...hath rejoiced in God my Saviour : 

Congr. For he hath regarded the lowliness of his hand- 
maiden : 

Priest. For behold . . .from henceforth — all generations shall 
call me blessed : 

Congr. For he that is mighty... hath magnified me, and 
holy is his name : 

Priest. And his mercy... is on them that fear him — 
throughout all generations. 

Congr. He hath shewed strength with his arm, he hath 
scattered the proud... in the imagination of their hearts: 

Priest. He hath put down the mighty... from their seat, 
and hath exalted the humble and meek : 



1 72 APPENDIX. 



Congr. He hath filled the hungry... with good things, and 
the rich... he hath sent empty away : 

Priest. He — remembering his mercy... hath holpen his 
servant I'srael; as he promised to our forefathers... Abraham 
...and his seed— for ever. 



THE JUBILATE : MORNING SERVICE. 

The expression as in the Venite. 

Priest. O be joyful in the Lord... all ye lands; serve the 
Lord... with gladness, and come before his presence... with a 
song: 

People. Be ye sure... that the Lord... he is God j it is he 
...that hath made us... and not we ourselves : we are his peo- 
ple, and the sheep of his pasture. 

Priest. O go your way into his gates... with thanksgiving, 
and into his courts with praise : be thankful unto him... and 
speak good of his name : 

People. For the Lord is gracious, his mercy is everlasting, 
and his truth... endureth... from generation to generation. 

THE NUNC DIMITTIS: EVENING SERVICE. 

Cheerfulness, qualified by reverence. 

Priest. Lord... now lettest thou thy servant... depart in 
peace according to thy word: 

Congr. For mine eyes... have seen thy salvation 

Priest. Which thou hast prepared... before the face of all 
people — 

Congr. To be a light... to lighten the gentiles; and to be 
the glory of thy people... Israel. 



APPENDIX. 173 



THE APOSTLES CREED. 

No marked expression is required : the manner 
must be earnest; the tone low ; the enumera- 
tion distinct. 

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven 
and earth. 

And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord : who was 
conceived... by the Holy Ghost: born... of the Virgin Mary: 
suffered... under Pontius Pilate: was crucified, dead, and bu- 
ried: he descended into hell : the third day... he rose again 
from the dead : he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the 
right hand of God... the Father Almighty: from thence — he 
shall come to judge... the quick... and the dead. 

I believe in the Holy Ghost : the holy catholic Church : 
the communion of Saints : the forgiveness of sins : the resur- 
rection of the body : and the life everlasting. 

DOMINUS VOBISCUM, ETC 

Affectionate solemnity. 



Priest. The Lord . . .be . . . with you : 
Ans. And with thy v spirit. 
Priest. Let us pray. 



Lord. ..have mercy upon us: 



Congr. Christ... have mercy upon us 
Priest. Lord... have mercy upon us. 



174 APPENDIX, 



SHORT PRAYERS AND RESPONSES BEFORE THE COLLECTS. 



Earnest and reverential entreaty. 



Priest. O Lord... shew thy mercy upon us : 

Ans. And grant us thy salvation. 

Priest. O Lord... save the king: 

Ans. And mercifully, hear us... when we call upon thee. 

Priest. Endue thy ministers... with righteousness : 

Ans. And make thy chosen people — joyful. 

Priest. O Lord... save thy people: 

Ans. And bless thine inheritance. 



Priest. Give peace... in our time...O Lord : 



Ans. Because... there is none other... that iighteth for us 



— but only thou...O God. 



Priest. O God... make clean our hearts within us : 



Ans. And take not thy holy spirit from us. 



THE SECOND COLLECT: MORNING SERVICE. 

The expression as in what precedes : the tone a 
little lower. 

O God. ..who art the author of peace. ..and lover of con- 
cord in knowledge of whom...standeth our eternal life... 

whose service... is perfect freedom t defend us... thy hum- 
ble servants... in all assaults of our enemies; that we... 
^surely trusting in thy x defence — may not fear the power of any 
adversaries — through the might of Jesus Christ... our Lord. 



APPENDIX. 175 



THE SECOND COLLECT: EVENING SERVICE. 

O God... from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and 
all just works... do proceed — give unto thy servants... that 
peace... which the world... cannot give ; that both — our hearts 
may be set to obey thy commandments, and also — that... by 
thee... we being defended from the fear of our enemies — may 
pass our time in rest and quietness — through the merits of 
Jesus Christ... our Saviour. 

THE THIRD COLLECT : MORNING SERVICE. 

O Lord... our heavenly Father... almighty and everlasting 
God... who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this 
day — defend us in the same... with thy mighty power : and 

grant that this day... we fall into no sin, neither run into 

any kind of danger; but... that all our doings... may be or- 
dered by thy governance... to do always that. ..is righteous in 
thy sight — through Jesus Christ... our Lord. 



THE THIRD COLLECT: EVENING SERVICE. 



Lighten our darkness... we beseech thee... O Lord; and... 
by thy great mercy... defend us from all perils and dangers of 
this night — for the love of thy only Son... our Saviour... Jesus 
Christ. 

THE PRAYER FOR THE KING. 

The commencement should assume a full toned ex- 
pression of sublimity : in other respects, the 
manner as in the foregoing prayers. 

O Lord, ..our heavenly Father high and mighty 



176 APPENDIX. 

king. ..of kings, Lord. ..of lords, the only Ruler of princes 

who dost... from thy throne... behold all the dwellers upon 

earth most heartily we beseech thee with thy favour 

...to behold our most gracious sovereign lord... King George : 
and so replenish him with the grace of thy holy spirit — that 
he may alway incline to thy will, and walk in thy way. En- 
due him... plenteously... with heavenly gifts: grant him... in 
health and wealth long to live : strengthen him... that he may 
vanquish and overcome all his enemies: and finally... after 
this life... he may attain everlasting joy and felicity— through 
Jesus Christ... our Lord. 

THE PRAYER FOR THE ROYAL FAMILY. 

Almighty God... the fountain of all goodness — we humbly 
beseech thee. ..to bless... all the Royal Family. Endue them 
...with thy holy spirit: enrich them... with thy heavenly 
grace: prosper them... with all happiness : and bring them to 
thine everlasting kingdom — through Jesus Christ... our Lord. 

THE PRAYER FOR THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE. 

Almighty... and everlasting God who alone workest 

great marvels isend down... upon our Bishops, and Cu- 
rates, and all Congregations committed to their charge... the 
healthful spirit of thy grace : and that they may truly please 
thee — i pour upon them the continual dew of thy blessing. 
Grant this...O Lord. ..for the honour of our advocate and me- 
diator... Jesus Christ. 



APPENDIX. 177 



THE LITANY. 

Earnest and humble supplication must be expressed 
throughout: — the address to each Person of 
the Trinity must be made with impressive so- 
lemnily. 

O God the Father... of heaven — have mercy upon us... mi- 
serable sinners. 

O God the Son... Redeemer of the world — have mercy upon 
us . . .miserable sinners. 

O God the Holy Ghost... proceeding from the Father... and 
the Son — have mercy upon us... miserable sinners. 

O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity... three Persons... and 
one God — have mercy upon us... miserable sinners. 

Remember not... Lord... our offences, nor the offences of our 
forefathers ; neither take thou vengeance of our sins. Spare 
us... good Lord — spare thy people... whom thou hast redeemed 
...with thy most precious blood, and be not angry with us... 
for ever : 



Congr. Spare us... good Lord. 

From all evil and mischief : from sin : from the crafts and 
assaults of the devil : from thy' wrath : and from everlasting 
damnation good Lord... deliver us. 1 

Congr. Good Lord... deliver us. j 

From all blindness of heart : from pride, vain-glory, and 
hypocrisy : from envy, hatred, and malice : and all uncharita- 
bleness— good Lord, &c. 

From fornication, and all other deadly sin : and from all the 
deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil — good Lord... 
deliver us. 

N 



178 APPENDIX. 

From lightning and tempest : from plague, pestilence, and 
famine : from battle and murder : and from sudden death- 
good Lord, &c. 

From all sedition, privy-conspiracy, and rebellion : from all 
false doctrine, heresy and schism : from hardness of heart : 
and contempt of thy word and commandment — good Lord, &c. 

By... the mystery of thy holy incarnation: by... thy holy 
nativity and circumcision: by... thy baptism, fasting, and 
temptation — good Lord, &c. 

By thine agony, and bloody sweat : by thy cross and pas- 
sion : by thy precious death and burial : by thy glorious resur- 
rection and ascension : and by... the coming of the Holy Ghost 
— good Lord, &c. 

With cadential tones, and followed by a pause 
longer than heretofore. 

In all time of our tribulation : in all time of our wealth : 
in the hour of death : and in the day of judgment — good 
Lord, &c. 

With renewed earnestness of supplication. 



We sinners... do beseech thee to hear us...O Lord God: and 
that it may please thee... to rule and govern thy holy church 
universal... in the right way 

Cong?\ We beseech thee to hear us... good Lord. 

That it may please thee... to keep... and strengthen... in the 
true worshipping of thee, in righteousness and holiness of life, 
thy servant... George... our most gracious king and governor 
we beseech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to rule his heart... in thy faith, 



APPENDIX. 179 

fear, and love ; and that he may evermore... have affiance in 
thee, and ever seek thy honour and glory we beseech, &c- 

That it may please thee... to be his defender and keeper... 

giving him the victory... over all his enemies we beseech, 

&c. 

That it may please thee. ..to bless and preserve... all the 
Royal family we beseech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to illuminate all bishops, priests, 
and deacons, with true knowledge... and understanding... of 
thy word; and that... both... by their preaching... and living 
...they may set it forth, and show it accordingly we be- 
seech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to endue the lords of the council, 
and all the nobility... with grace, wisdom, and understanding 
we beseech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to bless and keep the magistrates; 
giving them grace... to execute justice, and to maintain truth 
we beseech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to bless and keep. ..all thy people 
we beseech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to give to all nations... unity, 
peace, and concord we be^ech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to give us... a heart to love and 
dread thee ; and diligently to live after thy commandments... 
...we beseech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to give to all thy people... increase 
of grace to hear meekly thy word, and to receive it with pure 
affection, and to bring forth the fruits of the spirit we be- 
seech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to bring into the way of truth... 
all such. ..as have erred, and are deceived we beseech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to strengthen... such as do stand; 
N 2 



180 APPENDIX. 

and to comfort and help the weak-hearted ; and to raise up 
them that fall ; and... finally... to beat down Satan under our 
feet we beseech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to succour, help, and comfort, all 

. . .that are in danger, necessity, and tribulation we beseech, 

&c. 

That it may please thee... to preserve all that travel by land 
or by water ; all women labouring of child ; all sick persons, 
and young children ; and to show thy pity... upon all prisoners 



. . .and captives we beseech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to defend... and provide for. ..the 
fatherless children... and widows ; and all that are desolate, 
and oppressed we beseech, &c. 



That it may please thee... to have mercy... upon all men... 



...we beseech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to forgive our enemies, persecu- 
tors, and slanderers, and to turn their hearts we beseech, 

&c. 

That it may please thee... to give... and preserve to our use 
...the kindly fruits of the earth, so as in due time... we may 
enjoy them we beseech, &c. 

That it may please thee... to give us true repentance: to for- 
give us all our sins, negligences, and ignorances : and to endue 
us... with the grace of thy holy spirit... to amend our lives... 
according to thy holy word we beseech, &c. 

With renewed and pressing earnestness of suppli- 
cation. 



Son of God we beseech thee to hear us. 

O Lamb of God... that takest away the sins of the world- 
Congr. Grant us thy peace. 



APPENDIX. 181 

O Lamb of God... that takest away the sins of the world — 
Congr. Have mercy upon us. 
O Christ — hear us. 



Lord... have mercy upon us: 



Christ... have mercy upon us: 

Lord... have mercy upon us. 

Priest. O Lord — deal not with us after our sins ; 

Ans. Neither reward us... after our iniquities. 

O God... merciful Father... that despisest not the sighing of 

a contrite heart... nor the desire of such as be sorrowful 

mercifully assist our prayers that we make before thee... 

in all our troubles and adversities... whensoever they oppress 
us : and graciously hear us — that those evils... which the craft 

and subtilty of the devil or man...worketh against us be 

brought to nought, and... by the providence of thy goodness 
...they may be dispersed: that we. ..thy servants... being hurt 
by no persecutions — may evermore give thanks unto thee... in 
thy holy church — through Jesus Christ... our Lord. 

Congr. O Lord. ..arise, help us, and deliver us. ..for thy 7 
name's sake. 

In the following passage, a tone expressing a 
sense of power and sublimity must blend with 
that of supplication. 

O God — we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have 



declared unto us... the noble works that thou didst in their 
days, and in the old time before them. 

Congr. O Lord... arise, help us, and deliver us, for thine 
honour. 



1 82 APPENDIX. 



The unmingled tone of supplication is resumed. 



Priest. From our enemies . . . defend us ... O Christ : 

Congr. Graciously look upon our afflictions : 

Priest. Pitifully behold the sorrows of our hearts : 

Congr. Mercifully forgive the sins of thy people : 

Priest. Favourably... with mercy... hear our prayers 

Congr. O Son of David... have mercy upon us : 



Priest. Both now, and ever... vouchsafe to hear us...O 



Christ 



Congr. Graciously hear us...O Christ : graciously hear us 



.O Lord Christ : 



Priest. O Lord... let thy mercy be showed upon us ; 
Ans. As we do put our trust in thee. 

With a previous look to the different parts of the 
Congregation, 

Let us pray. 

The looks must again be directed suitably to 
devout and earnest supplication. 



We humbly beseech thee...O Father — mercifully to look 
upon our infirmities : and. ..for the glory of thy name — turn 
from us... all those evils... that we most righteously have de- 
served: and grant... that in all our troubles... we may put our 
whole trust and confidence... in thy mercy, and evermore serve 
thee... in holiness and pureness of living.., to thy honour and 
glory — through our only mediator and advocate... Jesus Christ 
...our Lord. 



APPENDIX. 183 

THE PRAYER FOR THE PARLIAMENT. 

The expression as informer prayers. 



Most gracious God — we humbly beseech thee — as for this 
kingdom in general — so especially... for the high court of Par- 
liament... under our most religious and gracious king... at this 
time assembled ; that thou wouldest be pleased... to direct and 
prosper all their consultations... to the advancement of thy 
glory, the good of thy church, the safety, honour and welfare 
...of our sovereign, and his dominions ; that all things... may be 
so ordered and settled... by their endeavours... upon the best 
and surest foundations ; that peace and happiness, truth and 
justice, religion and piety, — maybe established among us... for 
all generations. (These, and all other necessaries... for them, 
for us, and thy whole church — we humbly beg... in the name 
and mediation... of Jesus Christ... our most blessed Lord and 
Saviour. 



THE PRAYER FOR ALL CONDITIONS OF MEN. 

O God*,. the Creator and Preserver of all mankind — we 
humbly beseech thee... for all sorts and conditions of men; 
that thou wouldest be pleased... to make thy ways... known 
unto them... thy saving health... unto all nations. More espe- 
cially we pray... for the good estate... of the catholic Church; 
that it may be so guided and governed... by thy good spirit... 
that all... who profess... and call themselves Christians... may 
be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith... in unity of 
spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life. 
I Finally — wc commend to thy fatherly goodness... all those... 



184 APPENDIX. 

who are any ways afflicted or distressed... in mind, body, or 
estate; that it may please thee... to comfort and relieve them 
...according to their several necessities — giving them patience 
...under their sufferings, and a happy issue.. .out of all their 



afflictions. And this we beg... for Jesus Christ... his sake. 

THE GENERAL THANKSGIVING. 

The expression, full of ardour ; mil therefore be 
more cheerful. 



Almighty God... Father of all mercies — we... thine unwor- 
thy servants... do give thee most humble and hearty thanks... 
for all thy goodness, and loving kindness, to us, and to all 
men. We bless thee — for our creation, preservation, and all 
the blessings of this life : but... above all — for thine inestim- 
able love. ..in the redemption of the world... by our Lord... 
Jesus Christ: for... the means of grace; and for the hope of 
glory. And we beseech thee. ..give us that due sense... of all 
thy mercies — that our hearts... may be unfeignedly thankful ; 
and that we may shew forth thy praise... not only with our 
lips... but in our lives. — by giving up ourselves... to thy ser- 
vice, and by walking before thee... in holiness and righteous- 
ness... all our days — through Jesus Christ... our Lord : to 
whom, with thee, and the Holy Ghost, be... ail honour and 
glory... world without end. 

THE PRAYER OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. 

The tone low ; the expression as informer prayers. 

Almighty God... who hast given us grace... at this time... 
with one accord... to make our common supplications unto 



APPENDIX. 1 85 

thee, and dost promise... that when two or three are gathered 

together in thy name... thou wilt grant their requests 

fulfil now...O Lord... the desires and petitions of thy servants 
...as may be most expedient for them, granting us in this 
world... knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come... 
life everlasting. 

THE BENEDICTION, FROM THE SECOND OF CORINTHIANS. 

With earnestness and solemnity ; the address to 
the congregation. 

The grace... of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love... of 
God, and the fellowship... of the Holy Ghost... be... with us all 
— evermore. 

THE COLLECT OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 

The expression and address as in former prayers. 



Almighty God...iinto whom... all hearts be open, all desires 
known, and from whom... no secrets are hid — (cleanse the 
thoughts of our hearts... by the inspiration of thy holy spirit 
— that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy 
holy name — through Christ our Lord. 

THE COMMANDMENTS. 

The tone firm — the manner authoritative — the ad* 
dress, to the congregation. 

I. God spake these words, and said — I. ..am the Lord thy 
God, — thou shalt have none other gods... but mc. 



1 86 APPENDIX. 

II. Thou shalt not make to thy self... any graven image, nor 
the likeness of any thing... that is in heaven above, or in the 

earth beneath, or in the water.. .under the earth thou 

shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them. For I... 
the Lord thy God... am a jealous God, and visit the sins of the 
fathers... upon the children... unto the third and fourth gene- 
ration... of them that hate me; and shew mercy unto thou- 
sands... in them that love me, and keep my commandments. 

III. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thv God — 



in vain: for the Lord... will not hold him guiltless... that tak- 
eth his name in vain. 

'IV. Remember... that thou keep holy... the Sabbath day. 
Six days... shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do; 
but the seventh day — is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In 
it — thou shalt do no manner of work... thou, aud thy son, 
and thy daughter, thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, 
thy cattle, and the stranger that is within thy gates. For in 
six days — the Lord... made heaven and earth, the sea, and all 
that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore... the 
Lord... blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it. 

V. Honour thy father and thy mother — that thy days may 
be long — in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 

VI. Thou shalt do no murder. 

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

VIII. Thou shalt not steal. 

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness... against thy neigh- 
bour. 

X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house : thou shalt 
not covet thy neighbour's wife : nor his servant, nor his maid, 
nor his 6x, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his. 



APPENDIX. 187 

PETITIONS AFTER THE FIRST, AFTER THE SECOND, E'K ., 
AND AFTER THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. 

The expression as in other prayers. 



Congr. Lord... have mercy upon us; and incline our 
hearts to keep this law. 



Congr. Lord... have mercy upon us ; and incline our 
hearts to keep this law. 

Congr. Lord... have mercy upon us; and write all these 
thy laws... in our hearts — we beseech thee. 

COLLECT FOR THE KING. 

The priest, looking round on the congregation, 
pronounces 

Let us pray. 

He then proceeds with the tone and direction of 
look suited to earnest prayer. 

Almighty God. ..whose kingdom is everlasting... and power 
infinite — have mercy upon the whole Church : and so rule 
the heart of thy chosen servant... George... our king and go- 
vernor — that he — (knowing whose minister he is — ) may... 
above all things... seek thy' honour and glory ; and that we, 
and all his subjects — (duly considering whose authority he 
hath — ) may faithfully serve, honour, and humbly obey him... 
in thee, and for thee ; according to thy blessed word and or- 
dinance... through Jesus Christ... our Lord: who... with thee 
and the Holy Ghost... livcth and reigneth ever one God... 
world without end. 



188 APPENDIX, 



THE NIGENE CREED. 

No marked expression : the manner earnest, the 
tone low, the enumeration distinct. 

I believe in one G6d, the Father Almighty, Maker of hea- 
ven and earth, and of all things... visible... and invisible ; 

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of 
God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God... of God, 
Light... of Light, very God... of very God, begotten, not 
made, being of one substance with the Father: by whom... 
all things were made : who... for us men... and for our salva- 
tion... came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the 
Holy Ghost... of the Virgin Mary, and was made man : and 
was crucified also for us... under Pontius Pilate: he suffered, 
and was buried, and the third day... he rose again... according 
to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on 
the right hand of the Father : and he shall come again... with 
glory... to judge both the quick and the dead : whose kingdom 
...shall have no end. 

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of 
life, who proceedeth from the Father... and the Son; who... 
with the Father. ..and the Son together. ..is worshipped and 
glorified : who spake by the prophets. And I believe one ca- 
tholic... and apostolic Church, I acknowledge one baptism... 
for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of 
the dead, and the life of the world to come. 



APPENDIX. 189 



ONE OF THE COLLECTS GENERALLY USED BEFORE THE 
SERMON. 

The expression as informer prayers. 

Prevent us...O Lord... in all our doings... with thy most 
gracious favour, and further us... with thy continual help; 
that... in all our works... begun, continued, and ended, in thee 
...we may glorify thy holy name, and... finally... by thy mercy 
...obtain everlasting life — through Jesus Christ... our Lord. 

COLLECT GENERALLY USED AFTER THE SERMON. 



Grant... we beseech thee... Almighty God — that the words 
...which we have heard... this day... with our outward ears... 
may... through thy grace... be so grafted inwardly... in our 
hearts — that they may bring forth in us... the fruit of good 
living... to the honour and praise of thy name : through Jesus 
Christ... our Lord. 

THE BLESSING. 

Addressed to the congregation with affectionate 
solemnity. 

The peace of God... which passeth all understanding — 
keep... your hearts and minds... in the knowledge and love 
of God, and of his Son... Jesus Christ. ..our Lord: and the 
blessing of God Almighty... the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost... be amongst you, and remain with you... always. 

THE END. 



G. Woodfall, Printer, 
Angel Court, Skinner Street, London. 



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